ADVERTISING.
DESIGN.
BRAND.

The first life

Advertising. Ogilvy, TBWA, M&C Saatchi, McCann. Four networks across Milan and Amsterdam. New briefs every few weeks. New clients, new problems, new rooms to sell ideas in. I learned how to crack a concept under pressure and how to fight for it in front of people who didn't ask for it. That's where the craft was built.

The second life

Design. Not as a separate career. As a parallel one. I've created 50+ brand identities. I think in systems, not just campaigns. Logos, guidelines, design languages, the infrastructure that holds a brand together when no one is watching. Most advertising people don't think this way. It's always been natural to me.

The third life

Brand building. The in-house years. G-Star RAW, where I learned what it means to protect a brand with a fierce identity. Catawiki, where I built a brand system that needed to work across 80+ countries and dozens of product categories. Exness, where I'm leading creative for one of the world's largest trading platforms, in an industry where trust is the entire product.

The shift

The move from agency to in-house changed how I think about everything.

In agencies, you're judged on the quality of what leaves the building. In-house, you're judged on whether the thing you built six months ago still holds up today. When the person who briefed it has moved teams. When the budget has changed. When three stakeholders who weren't in the original room all have notes.

Agencies taught me how to make something exceptional. In-house taught me that consistency, repeated over time, is worth more than occasional brilliance nobody can replicate.

I've come to believe that the best brands aren't built from mood boards or guidelines. They're built from conviction. A clear decision about who you are, who you're for, and who you're not for. Everything I do now starts with that question.

What I actually do

I lead creative teams. I set the direction. I build brand systems. I direct campaigns from strategy through to execution. Brand identity, design systems, advertising, digital, motion, TVC. The range exists because the work has always demanded it.

I've led teams of 10+ across brand design, UX, motion, and content. I've directed brand identity systems across international markets. I've pitched and won new business at agency level and built creative functions from scratch at in-house level.

What I care about

The work I'm proudest of isn't the awarded work. It's watching people I've managed develop their own creative judgment and carry it into the next role.

A creative function that only works when one person is in the room isn't a function. It's a dependency. I built a few of those early in my career. I don't build them anymore.

Now I try to build teams where the standard holds after I've left. Where feedback is a skill, not a personality trait. Where junior creatives get to make real decisions and be held accountable for them. That's harder than making great work. It took me a long time to understand it was the actual job.