“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
-Thomas Edison
Building a Creative Department from Scratch
Everything I learned across 20 years at the top agencies was brought into action when I took the job of VP, GCD at In Connected Chicago, charged with building their creative department. My first day, I was the only creative in the office. After three years, we had grown out of that office and filled out the second space with 27 creatives, 5 Chicago accounts and 1 NYC client.
It was the most challenging and also most rewarding experience, filled with the most spectacular creative people. This department, the work we created, the awards we won as a team, and the office we built together is the work of which I am most proud.
March 2018 / In Connected’s creative team. This was taken my last day in the office at my agency going-away party. There were drinks, tears and a lot of very, very bad karaoke after this was taken.
2017 (left) and 2018 (right) / We grew from 5 people and one account, then to 12 people and four accounts, and before leaving my creative team was responsible for 7 accounts and approximately 25 people in two cities (L’Oréal was staffed in NYC with three creatives).
The Agency Family Wall / As a young creative, I worked in places where teams felt very siloed because their account functioned so independently. As a small agency it was important for me to help unite people, no matter what they worked on. We were one big team and we all needed to support one other. Together, we watched new faces multiply across the wall.
The Puzzle Table / The great contradiction of our professional times is the open work space has actually caused the decline of team work and collaboration. Instead of a bunch of people plugged into headphones, the puzzle was something to gather around. People took their breaks from screens to puzzle and connect–creatives and strategists, account people and planners, finance and art directors. A simple solution with amazing results.
Mentoring and Talent Development
Gold Effie Win, Tyson / This is Jacob Pintal, my third creative in the Chicago department. I hired him right out of school. He came in for his interview wearing a full suit and tie with a killer book featuring an experiential campaign around campus safety for women. The day I left, he told me that he was weighing two offers: one from us and another from a notable, well-established creative agency. He said he wanted to be part of building something, so he accepted ours. Three years later, he took the stage to accept his first Effie win–a gold. Watching him grow as a creative embodies everything rewarding about mentorship.
During National Mentoring Month, Antoine Fagen, our young designer and junior editor was kind enough to share some kind words on our office Slack, which then found their way onto our firm’s social platform.
Published Creative Editorial
Some creative teams have had to adapt quickly to remote collaboration since the pandemic. However, remote collaboration was something I had already been working best-practices for in 2014. Engaging remote team members, even before the mass adoption of video and virtual whiteboards, have made it more productive.
