ABOUT JESS
I’m Jess. I lead creative teams and make complicated things easier to understand.
I’m a Creative Director with a design background and more than a decade of experience across brand, campaigns, digital experiences, production and performance creative.
I started my career making the work myself. Over time, that grew into leading the people, systems and strategy behind it.
I care about strong ideas, clear direction and work that actually connects with people. I also care a lot about how the work gets made.
HOW I WORK
Good structure should make the work easier.
I like clear expectations, thoughtful processes and systems that remove unnecessary work. The goal isn’t process for process’s sake. It’s giving people enough structure to know where we’re going and enough room to do great work getting there.
I lead people like people.
Creative teams aren’t a collection of resources on a spreadsheet. They’re people with different strengths, ambitions, families, lives and ways of working.
I want to know what someone is great at, where they’re stuck and what they want to become better at. Sometimes leadership means giving clear creative direction. Sometimes it means removing a blocker, protecting someone’s time or recognizing that life outside of work is happening too.
I stay close to the work.
I’m comfortable moving between the big picture and the details. That might mean shaping a campaign direction, reviewing a storyboard, helping a strategist sharpen an insight, giving design feedback or working with leadership on what the team needs next. I don’t need to make every asset myself. But I want to understand the work well enough to make it better.
I believe creative should keep learning.
I like using audience behavior, performance data and team retrospectives to understand what’s working and why. Not because every creative decision needs to be reduced to a number, but because good creative teams stay curious.
EXPERIENCE
A decade of making, then leading.
2021–2026
Matchnode · Creative Director
I joined Matchnode as a creative designer and ultimately built and led the agency’s creative function across a growing portfolio of brands.
I grew and began managing a team of designers and creative strategists, overseeing hiring, development, workload planning, freelancers and creative quality across roughly 15–19 active clients.
My work spanned creative strategy, brand and campaign direction, paid media, creator content, photo and video production and the systems behind how creative moved from insight to brief to execution.
I also partnered closely with media and agency leadership, using performance data to understand what audiences were responding to and helping teams turn those learnings into better creative.
A few things I owned
- Led and developed a multidisciplinary creative team
- Directed creative across brand, campaigns, video, static, UGC and production
- Built creative strategy and testing systems across Meta, Google, YouTube, TikTok and other channels
- Managed hiring, reviews, team capacity, freelance support and creative budgets
- Worked directly with clients and leadership to translate business problems into creative direction
- Created processes that helped a high-volume agency team work more clearly and efficiently
2018–2021
Leesa · Senior Graphic Designer
Leesa gave me the chance to work inside one brand and understand how creative connects across the entire customer experience.
I designed across e-commerce, lifecycle, paid media, retail, packaging and product launches, while also helping plan and execute photo and video production.
It was where I started thinking beyond individual deliverables and more about how a brand stays recognizable and cohesive everywhere it shows up.
2016–2018
The Richards Group / RBMM · Graphic Designer
I started my career in a design agency.
At RBMM, I worked across identity, campaign, digital and experience design for brands including Central Market and Chick-fil-A.
That foundation still shapes how I lead today. I know what it feels like to be the person receiving the brief, making the work, presenting the options and trying to turn feedback into something better.
EDUCATION
Old Dominion University
BFA in Graphic Design · Minor in Marketing
WHAT IT’S LIKE TO WORK WITH ME
Kind words from peers.
“If you don’t know how to do something, ask Jess and she will figure it out and make it look awesome at the same time.”
Garrett Owen
Co-Founder and Creative Director, Grand Effect
“That takes a rare combination of talent, curiosity, and amazing determination.”
Brandon DeLoach
Owner and Creative Director, D&Co.
“She thinks conceptually and can clearly articulate an idea visually.”
Geoff German
Executive Creative Director, Squires&Co
And a few from chats.
I’m proud of the work I’ve made. I’m even more proud when the people I’ve worked with felt supported, challenged and trusted while we made it.
WHAT’S NEXT
I’m looking for the next brand and team worth getting close to.
I’m looking for an in-house creative leadership role where I can help build strong teams, strong creative and the systems that make both sustainable.
