An award-winning, extremely versatile senior creative with experience in all mediums and pretty much every category.
Resume:
Oct 2022 – Present: Decided to move back to freelance, planning to stay.
January 2022 – October 2022, Hill + Knowlton Strategies, Creative Director: Rio Tinto Aluminium, Wellness Together Canada, Masco, Cancer Action Now, Mazda, Interac, Nespresso, new business.
Sept 2020 – January 2022, Freelance ACD/Writer: TD, Sun Life Insurance, Ronald McDonald House, Wellness Together Canada, Mazda, others.
March 2020 – September 2020, Agency 361 (TD’s internal agency), ACD/Copy: Led internal agency copy team across all lines of business, while continuing to write on a wide variety of projects.
2017 – March 2020, Freelance ACD/Writer: Allstate Insurance, Globe and Mail, Yellow Pages, Unilever, Foxwoods Resort Casino, Pfizer, Roche, TD Canada Trust, FIGR Cannabis.
2014 – 2017, Public Inc., Associate Creative Director: Canadian Diabetes Association, Maple Leaf Foods, OCASI/City of Toronto, Toronto Zoo, CivicAction, Rick Hansen Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Under Armour, new business.
2011-2014, FCB Toronto, Associate Creative Director/Writer: OPA, Purolator, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, DLM (Meow Mix, Milk Bone), TD, Union Hearing Aid Centre, Just Used Macs, bullying.org, new business.
2010-2011, Freelance: Sick Kids, Canyon Creek Restaurants, The Loose Moose, Ogilvy Toronto, Draftfcb Toronto.
2006-2010, Naked Creative Consultancy, ACD/Writer: The Globe and Mail, Princess Margaret Hospital, Autohound, The Hospital for Sick Children, new business.
2002-2006, FCB, Senior Writer: Kraft, Waterpik, NABS, Alliance Atlantis, Grand and Toy, Nerds on Site, Quaker, JDRF, Coors Light, TD Canada Trust, new business.
1999-2001, Gee, Jeffery & Partners, Writer: Panasonic, Atlas Wines, Canadian Airlines, Cantel AT&T, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, TD, new business.
1998-1999, Padulo Integrated, Writer: CIBC, Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada, Hospital for Sick Children, Auto Trader, Simmons, new business.
Awards (finalists and medals): Cannes, One Show, ANDY Awards, Marketing, ADCC, Applied arts, Extras, LIAA.
About me:
Growing up in Northern Ontario, the idea of getting paid to come up with ideas was a completely foreign concept. A lot of the kids in my neighbourhood had their sights set on a job at the pulp and paper mill. It paid well and you were union. There was also forestry. You weren’t union, but you could make good money if you worked hard, often leaving before dawn on Monday morning and coming back to town Friday night as camp would be three or more hours away.
It wasn’t until I left for Southern Ontario to go to university and then college that I found out you could make a living by having ideas.
And then one day, seemingly just like that, I found myself sitting in a real office at a real Toronto ad agency typing away on a laptop. That first day, I dutifully wrote a radio script with the words “20% off sweaters” repeated four times throughout, as mandated by the client. I felt like I’d won the lottery.
I wrote my way up from retail (where I learned to write hard and fast) into the far more complex and thoughtful world of brand campaigns with more players, more moving parts and nicer boardrooms. Over time, I went from fast to solid to good.
I’ve now got a lot of experience behind me and, I firmly believe, my best work ahead of me. I’ve come up with ideas both for and with some very talented people who have pushed me and helped me become a better creative person and, in more recent years, a better leader.
To this day I still feel like I’ve won the lottery. I’m in a fantastic industry surrounded by smart, often funny and occasionally crazy people. Every day holds the possibility of a project coming in that will lead to an idea that will change everything.
Either that, or I’ll get briefed on a radio script for 20% off sweaters. Which I’ll still happily write. Just without mentioning the offer four times in the copy.