I’m a writer, marketer, and entrepreneur who has spent my career creating ideas to solve challenges. Respecting the unique nature of each person’s creativity, I provide coaching, tools, and inspiration to help people and brands tell their true stories clearly and compellingly, in ways that best fit them.

I founded the marketing consultancy Twist in January 2009, reflecting my boundless optimism and blissful ignorance. Twist has worked with brands ranging from small non-profits to Fortune 100 companies, helping them develop successful brand strategy, focus their message, and achieve maximum impact through superior ideas and execution. I have no formal business training but over 10 years, and with the help of a lot of smart and generous partners, I’ve built a successful business.  

Before founding Twist, I spent 23 years navigating the corporate world, moving up the ranks of ad agencies from copywriter to Group Creative Director. I wrote and creative directed marketing campaigns that helped build iconic brands like Quaker Oatmeal, Coors Light, and Gatorade, winning Gold and Silver One Show Pencils for creativity, and Gold and Silver Effies for ad effectiveness. Michael Jordan and I started working on the Gatorade brand on the same day and I survived 10 years of making commercials with him. He called me “Peanut Butter Jelly Boy,” but that’s a story for another time.

My Twisted Sisters and Brothers

I have no full-time employees but I have amazing resources, mostly in Chicago but also spread out across the map. Efficiency, humility, generosity, a teeny bit of surliness, and a whole lot of experience characterizes my network of Twisted Sisters and Brothers. They live, think and solve across different categories, areas of expertise, and time zones, and with the exception of one surly guy in Berlin, they’re all really nice. It’s amazing what you can get done in the great coffee shop in the cloud.