Throughout my career, I’ve been lucky enough to work with some pretty incredible mentors. The philosophies they instilled in me are simple.

I credit both those guiding principles and the mentors who passed them on to me for any and all success I’ve had over the years as a creative.

Although, interestingly enough, my advertising career didn’t start in the creative department.

After one long year of being arguably one of the country’s worst assistant media planners (okay, maybe second worst) Minneapolis-based creative agency, Carmichael Lynch, was kind enough to give me a chance. And my journey as a copywriter began. There I worked on everything from Evinrude boat motors to Rapala fishing lures to First Alert Smoke Alarms.

From there I moved on to become an ACD at Fallon NY to work on brands like MTV, ABC’s Monday Night Football, and Conseco Financial Services.

I was later recruited to switch agencies and time zones to work at Goodby Silverstein in San Francisco where I helped oversee businesses like Budweiser, Saturn, and Goodyear.

In 2001 I returned to the Fallon mothership in Minneapolis as a CD on Holiday Inn/Holiday Inn Express and Citibank.

In 2005, after my son/mini-me was born, I chose to rejoin my family in my hometown of Atlanta. There I spent 4 years as CCO of BBDO’s Atlanta office, overseeing clients including AT&T, Embassy Suites, REI, Georgia Lottery, Bayer Crop Sciences, and ING.

In addition to expanding the Atlanta office’s role on AT&T, I also helped grow the agency with a series of new business wins. In short, we won 90% of the business we pitched.

Over the past 20 plus years (yikes), I’ve earned a lot of recognition for my work, winning my fair share of hardware in international awards shows like Cannes, One Show (winning Best of Show), CA, D&AD, and the Andy’s. Not to mention Clios. Otherwise known as “the only advertising award your Mom has ever heard of.”

But given all that, the thing I’m most proud of has been my ability to build bridges, not blow them up. My deep personal relationships with clients based on a mutual interest in business success have enabled me to grow and maintain business, and in some cases, save it from walking out the door.

More recently I was the CCO and minority partner of David & Goliath. There I was responsible for strategic communications and development for all agency clients, including Jack in the Box, KIA, The California Lottery, HBO and Universal Studios Parks and Resorts.

After leaving David & Goliath I got an opportunity to work at my very first in-house agency, The Wonderful Company. There I served as Chief Creative Officer, overseeing work for all of Wonderful’s brands including FIJI Water, Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful, halos, Justin and Landmark Wines, Teleflora, and more.

In addition to overseeing the strategic development for all communications, I was responsible for growing the team and evolving the department to address Wonderful’s increased need to amplify and grow its online presence and e-commerce capabilities. Working side by side with my client partners I helped Wonderful enjoy record sales for Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful and Teleflora. All during a worldwide pandemic.

Throughout the past two decades, my philosophy and focus have remained the same. The work is incredibly important, but so are the people who create it. Helping build an environment where people are able to do their best work and know everyone has other’s backs, is what I love to do. To me, it’s the most rewarding part of this business. And it’s what makes it fun. Because if you think back all those years ago, isn’t that the reason we all got into this industry in the first place?