Somehow, I built a career out of doing things nobody had done before in tech, media, and entertainment.
Which is pretty wild for an Oakland guy who started off playing in bands and working as a teacher to pay the bills.
I was the first marketer hired at Pandora. Pre-Spotify, Apple Music, and your Dad bragging about his new playlist. My goal was simple: get music discovery in more people's hands. What that ended up looking like was the #1 music service in the U.S., an IPO, and 80M acquired users.
Former Pandora execs then brought me to Twitch to lead the brand's expansion beyond gaming into music and sports. There, I built the Integrated Marketing discipline and did two things that would later become ubiquitous: live, creator-led watch parties – later adopted by shows like Manningcast. And creator-led commerce – a full 4 years before TikTok Shop existed in the US.
Since then, I've stepped in wherever businesses need marketing leadership at key inflection points. Including starting as a team of one with no budget at Amazon and scaling it to a 30+ person, nine-figure, global team across the entire entertainment portfolio. I never got to put a cool tagline on a Prime box (definitely suggested more than one), but our group 3x'd growth and improved retention by 45% across Amazon's streaming services. I'll take it.
The point? I dunno if there is one. All I know is that I fell into the corporate world for the same reason I left it: curiosity and independence.
Behind every growing business is someone who wants those same things. I want to use what I've learned over the years to help them. And for me, the best way to do that is as a hands-on Fractional CMO – equal parts strategy and execution.
I take on projects I think are cool, with companies I think are cool, with people I think are smart, kind, and can laugh after going through something hard.
If that's you, let's work 👊🏽
