More About Me

 

Seeking to cultivate the best to come with others…
passionately, insightfully, steadily.

My Objective

I help business and org clients achieve their goals more optimally, efficiently, and with greater purpose-impact through the power of…

  • stories brought to life through strategic design.

In combination, these two simple modalities…

  • serve in organizing diverse stakeholders around one, big, beautifully elegant, desirable, and positive idea.

This dual framework of design supported story not only promotes something solid in the marketplace…it inspires-delights all stakeholders to believe in what they’re cultivating…and keep at it…

  • so the greatest benefit is that innate regeneration is baked in.

 
 

My APPROACH

My range of strategic-creative services does not position around any particular physical medium…

it positions around a mental framework people can utilize to tackle any medium that their goal-challenge is a part of.

Business/Org Strategy - Marketing Campaign - Trend Relevance - Branding Visuals - Leadership Guideline - Founder’s Story - Book - Movie - Urban Planning - Org Culture Reset - Marketplace Positioning - New Product-Service Development - More…

  • Crystalize the Big Idea and World Build through It…Together as a Collective!

 
 

My EXPERIENCE

As a well seasoned and rounded professional, I didn’t choose a vertical pathway in any single pyramidally-structured organization for long.

I followed my personal development intuition…which means I am bespoke…personally curated…some kind of…

  • strategic artist compelled to make things better.

I have expertise in the realms of: relationship building, speaking, research-audits-analysis, storytelling, identity development, creative direction, design, client-staff talent/team development, workshop development, architecture, business strategy, branding, marketing, communications, fundraising, presentation development.

My Roles

Researcher - Thought Partner – Problem Clarifier

Foresight Strategist

Discovery Workshop Facilitator

Business/Brand Strategist – Storyteller
(Identity Related)

Hands On Creative Provider - Design Director

Internal-External Stakeholder Cultivator

Donor-Funder Cultivator

Implementor – Integrity Steward

PR – Comms – Marketing Developer/Planner

MY INSPIRATIONS (some)

My Objective: Expounded

Through deep listening and myriad data review…
-company history, competitor landscape, trend analyses, inside-outside-potential stakeholder interviews, more.

I help clients transform toward regeneration…
whether it’s in pursuit of tangible or more intangible goals:

-clarify the issue-challenge before misspending big budgets on it
-cultivate team or org consensus around a controversial issue
-develop a well-researched new product or org related objective
-re-position your brand for a changing marketplace
-brainstorm industry level innovation
-forge a new alliance-partnership opportunity
-shape-project capacity as a influencer
-foster a peek into the future to afford jumping ahead with confidence
-cultivate ability-capacity to impact the wider world for better

all of which not only assures big bang for investment buck…more from less…but can deliver a triple win from the perspectives of:

Commerce, Community, Culture.

Aka profit by way of a standing for a positive societal-nurturing and planetary-respecting purpose and outcome.

So, my quest in helping companies be guided by the notion of cultivating goodness from the inside out…having integrity, being holistic, cultivating practices that generate an internal-rippling out vibrancy that resonates back in…means everybody wins on-going from an innately baked in ‘goodness regenerating repeat cycle’.

And what makes me particularly unique in this…is that my worldview and skills were not cultivated in the institutional halls of business or marketing. I come to this more strategic level consulting by way of studying architecture…valuing it as an expression of how the arts and sciences can come together…to not only reflect society’s values…but to encourage them in a greater good aspirational direction.

“Design is how you treat people.” -Tucker Viemeister/who I have worked with at Rockwell Group

And in the same way I grasp that ancient vs modern architecture reveals the identity, values and intentions of its creators…I’m clear that ancient branding…the searing of bovine flanks…to modern branding…the specific color of a logo…reveals exactly those things too.

I have success in helping business clients grapple with their identity, values, and intentions, aka culture, to transform regeneratively…in many different ways.

And due, in large part, to my academic architectural beginnings, where I gained energy from the inherent tension of the practice itself as an art-science merger…is architecture an art served by science or a science transformed to do more through human creativity?

We Humans need Both Practices and Always.

We don’t have to pick-choose between them. I cherish my architectural education because it wasn’t exclusively only Arts or only Science…it not only bridged those in exciting, fresh ways but demanded my own hands-on embodiment of them…actually drawing what I observed-imagined, model-making so I truly understood the form and light-play, willing vague notions into very tangible existence…experiencing the power of creating something you could touch-feel from basically nothing.

And with all that empowerment…headed off to explore other opportunities that I could apply this intellectual and embodied learning to :]

 
 

MY CASE STUDIES

Lenovo
Director of Environmental Branding/Gensler: Global Architecture-Interior Design Firm

I led multi-discipline/cross dept teams for both client and Gensler to develop an expounded narrative from their existing Positioning Tagline: Innovation that Matters.

By encouraging the Lenovo c-suite cohort to digest this phrase at a little deeper level, suggesting to embody its essence as much as a Cultural organizing inspiration, as it already was for their Physical products…allowed for kicking off the narrative tool…into a story that was just tactically

Ultimately, leveraging the narrative of Nature as the most apt, definitive model of such a claim, and then directed the execution of a full scope workplace enviro-branding implementation that brought this Natural Theme to life within their new 300,000sf facility in Research Triangle Park, NC…including a destination innovation center, intended to promote frequent interface with Chinese partners, plus international entrepreneurs-startups. Which became a prolific award winner in their tech innovation space.

Citibank
Senior Associate - Creative Studio Director/Lippincott: Identity Consulting - Strategic Design Firm

Just following the initial merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group, I was responsible for leading multi-discipline/cross dept teams for both client and Lippincott in conceptualizing a new typical branch prototype: architectural design, interior design, and environmental branding for nationwide rollout, including primary/secondary signage - merchandising elements.

Although challenging to fully appreciate now, our design was inspired by the idea that a bank should be welcoming and comfortable, not intimidating, so we chose warmer-texture forward materials, carefully considered lighting, and pushed hard for a cozy customer, soft seating arrangement, front and center, to boldly signal that never-before experienced notion in a bank.

It devoted ample space to a very intangible idea that senior mgmt resisted allocating money for. Was a real battle. Notice, virtually, all branch banking institutions do this now…some even include cafes’ and bar seating.

Estee Lauder
Associate Director of Domestic Retail Design & Specialty Prototypes

Beyond retail and branding design for their existing nationwide store network, I led development and coordinated implementation of specialty prototypes, including their first transition from sales rep-assisted-only operations to an open-sell direct-to-consumer format…in order to compete head-on with market-emerging European competitor Sephora.

The first finished EL open-sell freestanding store debuted with intensive PR fanfare at The Forum Shops at Caesar Palace.

I leveraged the narrative of Ms. Estee’ herself: celebrating the Grand Dame’ of the American Cosmetics Industry…immersing tourists in the idea that they’re inside, perusing, and shopping in her very bespoke boudoir, her inner chamber, crossed with the mantic-antics of Vegas…thereby, dresser chests or full-length mirrors appear almost animated, larger than life, while floor to ceiling drapes cascade to frame a window view…or a perfume, lipstick, and top secret potion adorned super-sized, bejeweled chandelier…all, in concert, a nod to the depth of company heritage and its courageous woman founder, while executed in good-taste-wye-wink-fun.

Interesting to note they never moved aggressively forward with this model and now suffer disconnection with a both younger and Asian audience, as well as lagging sales. And, in addition, that they solicited me 20 years later to conjure yet another innovation for driving more traffic to their boutique store at Macy’s Herald Square location.

Dove Chocolates
Retail Design Director/CBX Worldwide: Branding & Marketing Agency

Radioshack-Verizonless-Sprint
Senior Associate - Creative Studio Director/Lippincott: Identity Consulting - Strategic Design
Led Radioshack initiative to partner with telecom entities for leveraging their 6,400 existing store nationwide network for providing consumers direct access

Urban Outfitters-Anthropologie
Senior Designer/Ron Pompei A.D.: Boutique Retail Architecture Firm

American Girl
Senior Designer/Donovan & Green: Boutique Creative Agency

Topaz + Aloha Petroleum
Retail Design Director/CBX Worldwide: Branding & Marketing Agency

ExtraSpecialTeas
Strategic – Creative Independent Consultant for Social Innovation Entrepreneur

Imaginland
Strategic – Creative Independent Consultant for Childcare Facility & Services Startup

WiseTribe
Strategic – Creative Independent Consultant for Social Innovation Entrepreneur

MY CLOSE

Just to briefly note, almost without exception branding has a bad name and is a misunderstood art…still viewed within the confines of a MadMen zeitgeist…exploitative, contemptuous, antiquated, inept.

There’s still those out there leaning into deception-bogus spin.

Not what I do at all.

Having considered my career path, since graduating, to be as much a part of my personal development as it is my professional, manifested through the thrill of working with so many types of people, in so many types of orgs, across so many different industries…I can say that as of the last 20 years I am all-in on being part of civilization’s solution…and not adding to its problems.

First Principle 01
How might support the sense of regeneration for both the people my business will impact and the Earth?
-People: How might I support my employees personal journey to continue within the constraints I have as a business owner? How might I support my Employees collective journey given the same?
-Earth: How might I
Cultivate Goodness from the Inside Out.

First Principle 02
How might I fully cultivate Human Potential within Nature’s Reality to achieve my Commerce, Community, Cultural goals such that they both can innately regenerate?

Strive for a triple winning formula as much as possible.

  • Commerce - grow-thrive as a regenerative business

  • Community - forge regenerative relationship with local-global community

  • Culture - step into thoughtful-positive industry level leadership because committing to something bigger…for our civilization’s greater good…will always get you up in the morning.

It’s really the best way to do just about anything…I have found.

blah blah…me

 
Ann O