My Brand, Creative, Digital and Marketing Leadership builds brands, inspires colleagues and delights customers. I love what I do.
From Nike to Google, Akamai and HBO, I help the biggest names in tech, media, and culture leverage the power of storytelling to build their brands to iconic status. Grounded in over 15 years of in-house Fortune 100 and agency experience, I’ve held senior leadership positions in B2B and B2C tech companies with revenue from $50M to $4B+. With deep experience building brand, creative and marketing teams at start-ups and enterprises, I have a successful track record of navigating hypergrowth, IPO’s, M&A’s, and scaling operations and resources.
Bold. Award-winning. Relentless. My brand/creative strategies, campaigns and content hit every touchpoint, physical and digital, with precision and purpose.
Brand and Creative is a team sport. I don't just lead & inspire high-performing teams with a low-ego, high-curiosity approach––I build them from the ground up.
An ambidextrous-brained leader, I excel at Creative, Brand Strategy and Operations. From start-ups to corporate enterprises, I’ve had the pleasure of working with amazingly talented people in diverse roles.
From global marketing strategies and campaigns, to visual identity systems, websites, narrative development, multi-million dollar brand videos and large-scale events, my high-performing globally distributed teams and I are accountable for amplifying brands, building communities of loyal customers, generating leads and revenue, and strengthening business narratives with measurable results and impactful creative.
My portfolio, skills and experience demonstrate a track record of delivering persuasive, innovative, customer-centric solutions at scale. To be successful it’s imperative that I’m a trusted partner-collaborator-manager to designers, strategists, UI/UX developers, multimedia producers, copy writers, media buyers, freelancers, vendors, and executive leadership.
My unique point-of-view as is further informed by a Dual Master’s in Design Strategy & Interaction Design, and a Certificate in Marketing Artificial Intelligence from Cornell University.
Impact.
My ability to define and deliver persuasive brand marketing visions have been recognized with 12 industry awards and responsible for delivering 500+ million impressions; $10 million in GMRR; 4K+ brand/product/customer videos and channel ads/assets; 1.5K website pages; 60 global events; 45 new product launches; 25 brand style guides and visual identity systems; 15 OOH global campaigns, and 9 sustainability annual reports.
Management Style.
I’m currently Head of Global Creative for Akamai, a multi-billion dollar Tech vanguard with 10,000 employees. To know me is to know that I take pride in my ability to build strong team cultures rooted in a shared mission, vision, purpose, and psychological safety. Day-to-day I lead, mentor and inspire my distributed, multidisciplinary teams to prioritize, think strategically, work collaboratively, take risks and communicate effectively.
In my tenure I’ve found that successful Brand Creative Digital Marketing Leadership is a mindful practice of hard and soft skills. Beyond my technical skills with Artificial Intelligence and Adobe Creative Suite, I employ rigor, social influence, stamina, vision, empathy, flexibility, attention to detail/big picture and a sense of humor to bring it all together. On good days I’m a Jedi, on others I’m a Wookie.
Marketing Maturity.
15 successful years of Fortune 500 and Global Agency brand marketing and creative leadership experience; keen ability to nurture talent and qualify, prioritize, and delegate workloads.
Trusted Collaborator, Superb Communicator.
Strong interpersonal skills to work effectively within and across teams; contributes to and builds on the success of others; charismatic speaker; superb verbal, written communication, and presentation skills.
Creative Mastery.
Technically adept across creative mediums, 2D/3D design software and tools (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, Figma, Frame.io) and multimedia/video production.
Driven for Results.
Tenaciously-driven to deliver on commitments; organized and self motivated; operationally-minded I hold myself and others accountable.
Customer Obsessed.
Keen ability to learn about customers' perspectives and incorporate these insights into strategic business decisions and deliverables.
Influencing for Impact.
Adept at persuading and influencing others with effective communication; actively seeks common ground across differences.
Strategic Judgment.
Effective at scoping complex problems and using business acumen to make knowledge-based short and long-term planning decisions.
Highly Adaptable.
Skilled at dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty with agility. Capacity and resilience to learn on the fly and shift priorities as business evolves .
Growth Minded.
Adept at identifying growth opportunities, developing, and executing GTM strategy, sales enablement, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive growth and bring big ideas to life.
What problems are you trying to solve?
Let me know. I’m curious to see how I can help.
Until then,
May the Force be with You,
Always,
- Zak
say hello
415. 999. 9401
zakbrazen (at) me (dot) com
www.linkedin.com/in/zakbrazen
@brazenworks
