At the age of 18, I began my creative career by opening an airbrush illustration company at a local trade center market, fueling my passion for creativity, culture and business. These three elements pushed me to excel through college earning a creative internship at J Walter Thompson, Detroit, working on Ford Motor Company and White Castle. After freelancing as an Art Director around town at a couple of independent agencies and for a rising film director, multi-cultural advertising discovered me.
Global Hue, America’s first dedicated multi-cultural advertising agency at the time, embraced me as one of their own and put me in the center of creating culture driving, award-winning advertising for Jeep and Verizon Wireless. My hard work, dedication and staying true to self gained me the opportunity to appear on the cover of Screen Magazine titled “Emerging Markets, Emerging Talents” and also featured in Advertising Age 29 under 29 “Next leaders in advertising”
New York soon called thereafter, Uniworld Group in New York recognized my uniqueness, offered me a position, and moved me to the east coast with a position to help lead creative efforts on Ford Motor Company and Burger King to continue the agencies dedication to the African American consumer marketplace. After a short period of developing stand out work and helping to grow the Ford business, I accepted an offer to join Leo Burnett Vigilante to help lead creative efforts on General Motors and New Business including multiple stints creating award winning campaigns for the Partnership for a Drug Free America. Our teams gained a combined 14 Davey, Summit and international Telly awards.
Living in Brooklyn and working in New York was one of the most inspiring phases of my life, but it was time to get back closer to my family in the midwest. Burrell Communications in Chicago is where I helped build, nurture and lead a high-performing team, inspiring the continuation of a dynamic mix of culture, creativity, and multi agency collaboration. My teams developed and executed national advertising campaigns for major clients including Comcast, Xfinity, NBC Universal, McDonald’s and Toyota resulting in increased agency scope of work on every brand and a total of 43 awards gained by our collective efforts.
