About
Twenty years on
both sides of the
creative relationship.
The Perspective
Why dual fluency
changes everything
Most creative leaders have been the vendor or the client. Almost no one has been both — deeply, authentically, at a senior level — in the same career.
As the founder of LightSource Media, I built and ran a production company from the inside. I learned what production actually costs, what agencies actually charge, and what the gap between those two numbers looks like. I learned how vendors think, how they bid, where scope creep originates, and how to manage the economics of creative work in ways most clients never see.
As a creative leader at Brown Brothers Harriman, I sat on the other side of every brief I’d ever written. I experienced what it means to navigate compliance and brand governance in a regulated environment, to manage agency relationships from inside an enterprise, and to be the person responsible for brand outcomes without always having the authority to achieve them.
That combination — the vendor’s fluency and the enterprise insider’s perspective — is not something you hire. It is something that gets built over decades. It is also the specific thing that closes the gap between what financial services brands want to create and what actually ends up getting made.
How I Work
A philosophy in
four principles
Ownership over output
I am responsible for results, not tasks. The distinction matters: it changes how the engagement is structured, what authority I need, and what success looks like. I do not deliver work. I own outcomes.
Defined scope, real authority
An engagement without decision-making authority is a consulting project. I am not interested in consulting projects. Every engagement begins with a clear, explicit definition of what I own and what I advise on.
Systems first, deliverables second
I build repeatable workflows and institutional creative capacity — not just assets. The measure of a successful engagement is what works after I am gone, not what was produced while I was there.
Bridge role: strategy to execution
The most expensive distance in any organization is the gap between what leadership wants and what actually gets made. I close that gap by speaking both languages fluently and refusing to let either side hide behind the other.
Background
The work that
built the perspective
“The right engagement begins with the right conversation.”
I am selective about the engagements I take. Not every company is the right fit — and that is worth establishing early.