I’ve spent my career trying to create work people want to embrace—work that’s sticky and moves a client’s business.

For the past five years, I’ve been on the rocket ship known as Highdive. I joined with my longtime creative partner, Jonathan Richman, as employees 37 and 38.

We jumped into the deep end pretty quickly, pun intended. Our first assignment– lead the pitch for Rocket Mortgage’s Super Bowl campaign. We won the business, and the work went on to take the #1 spot on the USA Today Ad Meter—Highdive’s third #1 in a row. So, naturally, there was absolutely no pressure.

From there, my role expanded well beyond any single account. I’ve led some of the agency’s largest clients, helped win new ones, built and grown teams, shaped the work, and been part of the creative leadership responsible for where Highdive was going next.

We led the pitch for Jersey Mike’s and then helped guide the brand through a period of enormous growth, from roughly 1,000 stores to more than 3,500. Along the way, the company was acquired for $8.6 billion and a year after that successfully IPO’d.

It was a great example of what happens when the business, the brand, the stores, and the marketing all come together which made it one of the most rewarding relationships I’ve had in my career. Also, Danny DeVito is exactly as great as you’d hope.

While leading Jersey Mike’s, we also pitched and won BetMGM. We started with a Super Bowl campaign featuring Tom Brady and Vince Vaughn, then went to work building something bigger. In a category where competitors routinely outspent us by billions, we helped grow the business year over year while evolving the brand beyond its previous work with Jamie Foxx. That ultimately led to a new creative north star and the “Make It Legendary” platform, currently featuring Jon Hamm.

Along the way, I’ve led or contributed to work for Mentos, Jeep, Airheads among other brands and helped land the State Farm business. I have also been a regular part of the agency’s new-business efforts.

During my time at Highdive, the agency has been on the Ad Age A-List every single year, including #2 in 2024, was named Campaign US Agency of the Year in 2025, and twice landed on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list. We also were featured in a Communication Arts feature article. That rocket ship I joined at 37 people has grown to more than 150.

I’m proud of the recognition. I’m more proud of what it represents: great people making work that works. Because for me, advertising is actually pretty simple.

Make something people want to embrace. Make it sticky. And make sure it moves the client’s business.

We’re storytellers for brands, but we’re also professional interrupters. So whatever the medium, we need to earn that interruption. Inform them. Entertain them. Make them laugh. Surprise them. Teach them something. And do it in a way that makes sense for the brand. Bottom line if your work doesn’t stand out, then you are just wasting media dollars.

I love this job. At the end of the day, I get to tell stories, solve problems, and break rules in deliberate ways. It’s always changing, which means there’s always something new to learn. I try to stay adaptable, curious, and willing to approach a problem from a completely different direction. I don’t have a “style.” I’m more interested in finding the right answer for the problem in front of me.

Chicago born, and actually grew up in the city. My mother came to the U.S. as a Cuban refugee in her teens, and my paternal grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, also came here as a teenager. My father is a studio photographer, so I’ve been around the creative business for as long as I can remember. All of that has shaped my point of view, both personally and creatively.

I’m married to a wonderful woman who is also in the business—we met at work—and we have two young boys who love to eat, which works out well because I love to cook.