Twenty years working out what the problem actually is. Rarely the one I was handed. Then turning it into a strategy teams can act on to deliver what audiences need.
Most recently, Vice President, Strategy at McCann Canada. Before that, 10 years at Critical Mass, leading strategy for major US and global accounts.
The categories I end up in are the awkward ones. Four energy retailers selling the same services. A US fast food giant building familiarity in a new country. A humanitarian organization trying to keep donors engaged between disasters. Corn seed that works underground where nobody can see it. The differences are real and almost always invisible from outside the business.
I work at every level of a marketing problem. Research at the base, strategy and creative development in the middle, multiyear vision at the top. I move between them and stay close enough to see whether the strategy works once people have to execute it.
Some of the brands I have worked with
Digital and product
I spent a decade working on digital products and experiences from strategy through launch. Websites, apps, information architecture, service design and content strategy. Advising product owners on roadmaps and the numbers they were measured against.
AT&T Mobile’s purchase experience for 110 million customers, cut from more than ten pages to three. Blue Shield’s site rebuild, first iOS and Android apps, and a multi-year digital roadmap for the executive group. And Infiniti’s five-year digital strategy across 48 global markets.
Client side
I spent several years on the client side before moving fully into agency strategy, leading creative and marketing communications teams, owning brands and budgets, and working through a merger and a global rebrand.
That experience changed how I work. I build the internal case alongside the strategy because I know what it takes to move good work through an organization.
Before strategy
I started in digital as a creative and manager of digital teams, though back then I wore a lot of hats. In agency life, I was a Group Creative Director and Digital Director before becoming a Strategy Director. That is why I stay with creative teams through development instead of handing over the direction and waiting to see what comes back.
The doctorate
My PhD dissertation was on Digital Storytelling and Performance, from the University of Calgary. Five years studying how a story changes when the medium changes, and how an audience makes meaning out of something it is taking part in rather than simply watching. That question turns up on nearly every account.
Teaching and juries
I teach digital marketing and transformation in the Executive MBA program at the Haskayne School of Business, and have guest lectured at universities across Alberta since 2015. I have judged the Effie Awards Canada for five consecutive years, twice in the final round. Reviewing effectiveness cases year after year keeps the connection between strategy, work and results hard to ignore.
On the record
Sessional instructor, Executive MBA, Haskayne School of Business.
Board director, Imagine Citizens Network.
Effie-winning campaigns in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Effie Awards Canada jury, five consecutive years. Also The Drum, CMA and International ECHO Awards.
PhD, University of Calgary / MA, University of Manitoba / BA, University of Calgary
I am based in Calgary and have led work across Canada and the US, as well as global accounts, for twenty years.
Where this usually starts
A campaign in market that is not moving the business. A launch that needs a story before it needs media. A pitch or board presentation that has to land. Brand architecture that stopped matching the business three acquisitions ago.
Start with an introduction. Most of these turn out to be a different problem than the one on the page, which is usually the interesting part.