Brand Strategy Director
I build brand narrative, the system that keeps it consistent everywhere it lands, and the measurement that makes the investment defensible. Thirteen years across enterprise B2B technology, institutional rebrands, and Fortune 100 accounts.
01 — The strategist behind the work
I work where that is most obvious: regulated, high-stakes environments where a message has to reach a global audience and land identically in every market, every language, every time.
Today I am Strategy Director at Johnnie Studio, embedded in Microsoft's Partner Communications team. I have managed four strategists across the engagement, own integrated marketing and change-management strategy for a worldwide partner ecosystem, and am accountable directly to the client for my team's performance. Before that, five years of institutional rebrands and Fortune 100 brand programs on the agency side.
I also rebuild how strategy teams operate. Over the past two years I designed the agentic AI workflows that cut delivery SLAs across our account in half — which let us take on more work, more efficiently, with fewer people, after a 24% budget reduction. That is not a tooling story. It is an operating model, and it is the part of this work I find most interesting right now.
I have a master's in Critical Theory and Creative Research, which is a formal way of saying I was trained to read research closely and argue about what it means. That turns out to be most of the job.
Strategic strengths
Education
MA, Critical Theory & Creative Research
Pacific Northwest College of Art, 2015
Thesis Prize winner
BA, Advertising & Public Relations, Honors
Loyola University Chicago, 2013
02 — Selected work
Compliance changes and program shifts have to reach a global partner ecosystem and land the same way everywhere — the same meaning, the same deadline, the same consequence, in every region and language. That is a governance problem before it is a messaging one, and the failure mode is expensive: partners who miss a notification lose authorization, and Microsoft loses the revenue attached to them.
I own the integrated marketing and change-management strategy for that ecosystem, have managed the four strategists who have run it, and hold message alignment across product, legal, and marketing so one compliant, traceable voice survives contact with four departments. I also rebuilt how the team works — agentic AI workflows that took one 35+ hour monthly process under six hours, and cut delivery SLAs across the account by half.
Outcomes — client figures stated as orders of magnitude
SNA came to us with a recruitment problem. The research said it was an identity problem. "Lunch lady" is a diminutive attached to people running food safety compliance, allergen protocols, and supply logistics for thousands of children a day — and no campaign was going to fix hiring while the category name itself was doing the damage.
So we reframed the category rather than the ad. The work rebuilt the profession's story around what the job actually requires, then carried it through a campaign brief, video direction, and a live activation in front of the membership. This is the closest thing in my portfolio to category definition: changing what a whole profession is understood to be, for the people inside it first.
NWEA believed teachers were not engaging because they doubted the value of the assessment. That is a persuasion problem, and it implies a persuasion campaign. I ran the primary research to check — a survey of 473 teachers, the largest sample the organization had fielded in five years.
Teachers were not skeptical. They were blocked. Access and friction, not belief, explained the gap. That finding invalidated the campaign the brief had asked for and replaced it with a materially different one, built around removing barriers rather than arguing against doubts that were not there. Research is only worth commissioning if you are willing to let it overturn the plan.
Apples sell on appearance. EverCrisp does not win on appearance. The obvious strategy — fight for shelf presence against varieties bred to look better — was a fight the brand could not win on the axis the category had already settled.
The research gave us a different axis: 56% of buyers said they would switch varieties, and taste beat color as the reason. So we moved the argument off appearance entirely and built the positioning framework, brand repositioning, and retail strategy around taste and texture — competing where the product was strongest instead of where the category was loudest.
03 — How I work
The brief describes the symptom the organization has agreed on. The job starts by finding out whether that is the problem, and saying so early enough to matter.
I go to primary research obsessively, and I commission it only when I am willing to let it kill the plan. Research that can only confirm the brief is decoration.
Strategy handed over the wall and reviewed from outside is strategy that does not survive execution. I stay embedded, briefing and building alongside designers and writers.
A brand only holds if the hundredth person to use it can get it right without asking. Guidelines, tooling, and enablement are the strategy, not the paperwork after it.
Brand work that cannot be connected to behavior or revenue gets cut first in a hard quarter. I would rather be measured, and be able to show my work when someone checks.
AI is worth what it frees up. I use it to redesign how a team operates, not to produce more of the same output faster — and the governance has to come with it.
04 — Experience
Has managed four strategists. Owns integrated marketing and change-management strategy for Microsoft's global CSP partner ecosystem. Senior Strategist, Jan–Aug 2024.
Brand strategy and creative direction for new brand development programs serving Fortune 100 clients.
Discovery, primary research, and brand strategy for institutional rebrands and repositioning programs. Managed and developed one strategist; directed creative teams across concurrent engagements.
Led the cross-functional initiative bringing the product line to Amazon. Lifecycle email programs grew customer interactions 25%.
Three national digital campaigns for a leading food brand, overseeing creative development, user experience, and legal approvals.
05 — Contact
I am looking for a brand leadership role where I own the narrative, the system that keeps it consistent, and the measurement that proves it worked — ideally somewhere the category is still being defined rather than defended.
Probably a fit if you need someone who