Position: Digital marketing director, Arnold DC, the Washington office of ad agency Arnold Worldwide.
Career Highlights: Business and strategic development director, Trailer Park; executive producer, Transistor Studios; senior producer, AKQA; senior project manager, Razorfish.
Age: 37
Education: BS, communication studies, advertising and public relations, Emerson College; MBA, technology management, University of Phoenix.
Personal: Lives in Arlington with his wife and 2-year-old daughter.
How did you get to where you are?
I've had a passion for storytelling in multimedia form since my early days. When I was a kid, it wasn't enough to play the records. Once the song ended, I would do the voiceovers. I would write my own ads and public service announcements and read them. I would also write and distribute my own movie review magazine.
Professionally, I started as a copywriter, but when advertising started taking off in the digital realm, I began writing in that space.
I was hired as an editor for a freelance project, writing scripts for distance learning technologies. Then AKQA, which focused on developing digital campaigns, recruited me as a senior producer. It had a partnership with "Lost" to create a comprehensive online scavenger hunt that also served as an advertising campaign between the show's seasons.
I worked closely with the creative team to develop the storyline that wove AKQA's larger client, Sprite, into the storyline. That was not something that a lot of marketers were doing. It brought me to the realization that there was a lot more opportunity in the digital world.
I knew I wanted to stretch my legs more creatively, and Transistor Studios in Venice Beach recruited me to work closely with entertainment and content development. During this time I also wrote screenplays and episodes for the television shows "Scrubs" and "Heroes."
At Transistor, we produced promotional Web sites for theatrical and DVD movie releases. Before that, Transistor was not that engaged in the digital world. When I was there, I focused on digital production and bringing it in-house to compete with ad agencies.
Trailer Park, which makes movie trailers, recruited me to be director of business development. I laid the groundwork for Trailer Park to move out of its production-style roots to becoming more of an agency. I brought in more than $1 million in business in the short time I was there.
Eventually, Arnold recruited me. Arnold allows me to apply my creative drive and technical background as well as my people skills. It's something for which I feel I've been prepping myself for a long time.
-- Vanessa Mizell
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