Academy of Art University

University of California, Davis

Creative Director, The Sims at Electronic Arts (EA)

Winning hearts, headlines, and new business with transformative, idea-driven work. 

Partnered with: Tescia Deak www.tesciadeak.com
Currently at: Ogilvy NY

Previously: GirlsInc LA + Secret Level

Laurel Stark LLC

Independent ECD

I headed global marcom creative and out-of-game brand expression for one of the world’s most inclusive, beloved and best selling video game franchises of all time, The Sims. Responsible for envisioning, establishing and championing a bright new future for our franchise by crafting our brand foundations, rethinking our marketing model beyond "gaming as usual," building a franchise wide brand platform, and leading a vision for our brand that connects our brand to culture through diverse creative pioneers. 

My work for the Sims has been celebrated by Fast Company’s Brands That Matter, Adweek’s Ad of the Day, Shots Top 100, The Clios, The Effies, The Webbys, The Tellys, The MUSE Awards, The ARIAs (The Australian Grammys), and The One Show.

My leadership on the Sims has been recognized by Adweek’s Creative 100, ADCOLOR Leaders, AWNY’s Future is Female Awards, and the Brand Innovators 40 under 40.

Electronic Arts (EA)

(Global Marcom) Group Creative Director, The Sims

Creative Lead heading up content and concepts for the Events + Partnerships team.

TikTok

Creative Director, Events

In 2009, only 3% of Creative Directors were women (and even fewer were women of color). And since women and people of color make up a large majority of consumer spending and social sharing, it only makes sense that they would also be a larger part of the creative process. So the 3% Movement set out to make that happen.

As one of the longest standing team members, I currently lead digital storytelling and Next Creative Leaders program development, a program that I co-founded and run in partnership with the One Club for Creativity to shine a light on up-and-coming women and non-binary creative leaders. Our goal is to highlight and celebrate what leadership looks like from this POV.

The 3% Movement

Director, Editorial

Creative, editorial and consulting projects that focus on building belonging, breaking down stigma, starting hard conversations and supporting businesses that are shaping a better world. Collaborations with: The Strategy & Design Shop, Working not Working, The Fellow App, The Cutaway, The 3% Movement, The One Club for Creativity, SuperVillain Ltd., Spiral Up, Stanford University, ANML, Posture Media and more.

Self Employed

Creative Director

What if insurance actually functioned the way it was intended? What if a community of thoughtful people came together to make better choices and help contribute to a sustainable future for all? HiRoad is a State Farm led experiment in the insure tech space aimed at exploring the human side of insurance by suggesting, encouraging and rewarding more mindful choices. 

As the most senior creative in the Marketing org, I led brand and campaign development with the help of a tiger team and agency partners, developed the ecosystem strategy, and focused on developing a stronger and more consistent brand story across the app, website and more.

HiRoad

Creative Director, Brand & Experience

For years, Agency Inside set the standard when it came to inhouse creative output. I was lucky enough to join this talented and award-winning team in it's final months, helping to make some brilliant work as a part of our last "hurrah." 

I co-led creative development for the Education and Social Good verticals, and partnered with a Director to run creative output for event social on the ground—delivering video and social content for CES, the Super Bowl and more.

Intel Corporation

Creative Director, Event Social @ Agency Inside

Co-lead of the Shop @ Google, an embedded creative team of 26+. Supported global SMB marketing, developed SMB voice and tone, full tail marketing standards, elite special projects and DEI initiatives (including Global Pride efforts).

Media.Monks

Creative Director, The Shop @ Google

Associate Creative Director on HP's AON account. Making magic happen with a small, talented team, a lot of heart, a home made studio and one hard working Amazon account.

Wunderman Thompson

Associate Creative Director 

I was an Associate Creative Director embedded with the marketing team now known as Pixel. I was responsible for brand voice development, storytelling and product strategy for "Glass and beyond."

Google

Associate Creative Director, Pixel (formerly Glass)

Associate Creative Director on a behemoth global website launch for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Provided creative direction, content strategy, storytelling support and sanity to a team of writers charged with writing engaging, relatable content about servers (no easy feat) under a condensed timeline.

Razorfish

As one of the first 3% team members, I was a champion for change in creativity and tech. I fostered community and conversation around innovation, creativity and the diverse future of our industry (#changetheratio), grew our Twitter following from around 3k to 17k over the course of just a few short years, launched our Instagram presence and ran the San Francisco Super Bowl Tweetups from 2015-2017.

I also co-founded Next Creative Leaders, a portfolio competition held in partnership with the One Club for Creativity, aimed at highlighting up and coming women and non-binary creative leaders.

The 3% Conference

Social Lead

Associate Creative Director providing voice, vision and conceptual chops to two large, global Brand Studio initiatives:

Overhauled the Ads ecosystem, from content strategy to concept and copy:
*Developed and successfully pitched the new Google voice and story framework.
*Developed Google's video strategy around product education and awareness.
*Created brand new content (sites and videos) for 8 marketing sites (including Google Shopping, Google Wallet and Google Express).
*Partnered with/managed outside agencies around the new brand and story guidelines

Created content for the Google Store launch and beyond:
*Developed product stories and copy for LC and Sony products

In addition, I also worked on mobile strategy for creatives in Brand Studio and our partner agencies.

Associate Creative Director @ Brand Studio 

Associate Creative Director on Google and SunPower accounts. Provided creative direction, concept, copy and UX strategy for several video and digital projects.

Fantasy Interactive (Fi)

Gensler is an award-winning integrated architecture, design, planning and consulting firm with offices all around the world. I acted as the on-call "Story" Lead for Gensler's Washington DC and San Francisco Brand Studios. 

Partnering with the Studio principals and design and strategy leads, I helped to strategize, conceptualize and create identities and physical experiences for clients like Hilton, LinkedIn, Nickelodeon, MTV, and Office Depot/Max.

Gensler

Creative Director, Brand Experience

Teaching/Corrupting the future of our industry. Specifically focused on teaching digital, mobile and social best practices, and creative concepting.

Providing creative and strategic direction, critique and guidance to MFA students studying Copywriting, Art Direction and Strategy.

Advertising Instructor

Founding creative team member #3. 

Won over 3M of new business. Lead strategy and copy on our office's largest accounts.

ACD, Copy & Strategy Lead on Sony, Avon, Beats by Dre, SunPower. Also worked on Intel, Adobe and Activision.

SapientNitro

Associate Creative Director

Mentor, idea gal and inspiration curator.

Copy Lead for Samsung, Seagate, Lenovo, Polycom and LSI. Also worked on Bell Helmets.

CatapultWorks

Senior Copywriter

Helped grow the writing discipline, fell in love with UX, made AdAge's Agencies to Watch List, 2011.

Copy Lead on all Bay Area accounts including: HP, Lenovo, Skype, Intuit, Cisco, AVG, NetApp and Water.org. Also worked on Vizio, RIM BlackBerry, Samsung, Namco Bandai and Fox Networks.

Rosetta

Concept and copy for: CBS.com, CBS News, CBSSports.com, CHOW, CNET, GameSpot, Metacritic, TV.com and ZDNet.

Laurel Stark Akman