CONSTRUCTIVE CONTRARIANSISM

Whether it's leading a fast-growth company through growing pains, or mobilizing my kids to the beach, I believe in falling in love with the problem, not the solution. I approach work with the same liberal-arts mentality as I do play -- with both a sense of curiosity and contrarianism. My career and life are forever in prototype.

PROFESSIONAL

For the last 20 years I have helped brands strategically decode complex business problems into simple, human terms. I learned the fundamentals of media and marketing in the management training programs of global advertising monoliths Y&R and Grey; I then learned how to challenge those fundamentals at indie creative shops in LA. Over the course of my career, I’ve architected campaigns for some of the world's most-respected brands, wearing many hats, from strategic planning to brand management, business development to marketing.

Today I lead the Strategy group at Battery, an LA-based creative agency in the Havas network, working with brands like Discord, Netflix, Epic Games, Land O Lakes, LA Clippers, Angel City Football Club, and the Royal Bank of Canada. Prior to Battery I was Head of Strategic Growth at Sid Lee LA, collaborating with multidisciplinary teams around the world and modern brands like The North Face and Sundance.

Before Sid Lee, I led strategic growth at enso, a mission-driven creative agency that partnered with organizations like Google, Khan Academy, and Mattel to drive social impact at scale. That followed a brief detour into the startup world, where I served as Chief Marketing Officer of the venture-backed, direct-to-consumer brand Brilliant Bicycle Co., before it was sold to Priority Bicycles in 2016.

Previously, I served as Partner, Chief Strategy Officer at Omelet, setting the company's strategic vision, managing a world-class staff of thinkers, strategists, planners, and analysts, and leading all growth, corporate development, and marketing efforts. Over the course of my five-year run at Omelet, I helped grow organic revenue more than sixfold, from under $5 million to over $30 million, transforming a local boutique agency into a global marketing, entertainment, and branding firm. 

At Omelet, my client partners included Walmart, Microsoft, AT&T, HBO, Whole Foods Market, Sony, Moet & Chandon, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pokemon, and NBC Universal. I shaped the company's go-to-market strategy, from its mission, vision, and values to its branding, owned and earned media efforts, and industry leadership initiatives.

In 2013 I founded Omelet's award-winning editorial platform, Wake Up, to channel the company's thought leadership. What started as a quarterly magazine expanded to include weekly trend reports and original content series. The publication has garnered tens of millions of global impressions, over 100,000 reads, and tens of thousands of followers and subscribers.

Before joining Omelet, I led cross-disciplinary teams at Young & Rubicam and Grey in New York, and at Mendelsohn Zien in LA. At MZ I held a leadership role bridging business development, strategy, and client services for partners including Hormel, Carl's Jr./Hardee's, Yahoo, Monster Energy, and Hansen Natural Soda. At Y&R and Grey I worked on a range of consumer and B2B brands, including AT&T, KFC, Computer Associates, and Aetna, moonlighting on new business and internal transformation initiatives.

PERSONAL

Like many of my fellow Gen Xers, I’m trying to balance my Peter Pan complex with the responsibilities of fatherhood and middle age. When I’m not in a war room at the office or on the road with clients, you can find me hiking in the Santa Monica mountains with my kids or chasing snow in Utah.

I was born in Quito, Ecuador during a citywide blackout. It was 1976 and a military dictatorship had ambitiously developed the country's oil resources at the expense of its infrastructure. On April 20th, La Clinica Pichíncha, a dilapidated hospital in the oldest part of the city, lost all power minutes after my mother went into labor. Almost 24 hours later, I entered the world to a candlelight reception.

My dramatic entrance into the world was just the first of many unpredictable experiences growing up overseas. By the time I was twelve, I'd lived in five different countries, bouncing between Latin America, Asia, and Minnesota, where me and my four siblings developed a near-pathological love for the game of ice hockey. In fact, we proudly hold the distinction of introducing the game to Hong Kong back in 1986.

Some experiences, like being shaken down by corrupt police in Venezuela, left me longing for a more conventional childhood. But not many people are lucky enough to bike through rural China, hike the Amazonian rainforest, and explore uninhabited islands in the Philippines, all by the time they’re old enough to drive.

I visited my grandparents in Maine in the summers, went to prep school in Rhode Island, and attended Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, where I graduated with a BA in Latin American studies. After school I moved to New York, where on the advice of my father, who counseled that mediocre students in his day went into advertising, I entered the management training program at Young & Rubicam.

After seven rewarding, albeit largely sleepless years in New York, I made the trek westward to Los Angeles. It wasn't a month before I dropped the anchor and abandoned all talk of moving back east. 

Today, I live by the beach with my ten-year old daughter Quinn, who keeps me on my toes with a steady stream of uncomfortable questions, and six-year old son Keaton, who treats me to frequent urgent care trips.