"Writing is a concentrated form of thinking."
— Don DeLillo
A Creative Director who writes. And a writer who can lead a room, set a standard and build the kind of creative culture where other people do the best work of their careers.
I've run creative teams across multiple countries — briefing, directing and developing writers for multinationals operating at global scale. I know what it takes to hold a creative vision across markets, time zones and stakeholders without it getting diluted by the time it reaches the page.
And when it matters, I can still write the line myself.
Featured WORK
Two campaigns. Two audiences that couldn't be further apart — Rangitahi and middle-aged Aussie couples. One life-or-death, one a cruise holiday. What they have in common: a cultural insight that everyone else had missed, an idea so true to its audience that it entered the language, and results that outlasted the campaign budgets by years. This is what happens when strategy and creativity work in unison.
Honeyboomers ‘Carnival’
Everyone was talking about empty nesters like it was a loss. We flipped it — what if the kids leaving home was the best thing that ever happened to your relationship? We commissioned national research to prove the tension, coined the term 'Honeyboomers™', got a relationship expert on board, and built a campaign around a story the media wanted to tell.
66 domestic features. 20M+ opportunities to see. International coverage delivering a further 17M OTS. A first-ever 'flirt class' at sea that generated its own media cycle. And the result that actually mattered — an off-peak sales uplift double that of school holidays, achieved for the first time ever. Carnival trademarked the name and made it a permanent sub-brand.
Ghost Chips — NZTA
Young Māori men weren't ignoring drink driving ads because they didn't understand the risk. They were ignoring them because the messaging never reflected their reality. Shock tactics and sirens were irrelevant to an audience that valued mateship above everything — including authority. So we flipped the problem. Don't target the driver. Target the mate. Make speaking up feel legendary instead of awkward. The answer wasn't a safety campaign — it was a cultural artifact that happened to save lives.
1 million YouTube views in two weeks — unprecedented in New Zealand at the time. Hundred of Facebook groups. Thousands of memes. 90% prompted recognition across the entire country. 75% of the target audience said it made them more likely to stop a friend drink driving. 50% drop in teen drink driving over the following five years. #1 most searched term in New Zealand on Google the week it launched. Phrases entered the national vernacular and became NZ words of the year. Still used today. Referenced in a Pixar film. You can still buy the merch.
Awards: D&AD Yellow Pencil · Gold Effie — The Hardest Challenge · Grand Effie — Sustained Success · NZ Effie Campaign of the Year · Featured in NZ On Screen · Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand · Wikipedia · Effies
I don't just use AI. I was on the GOOGLE team that built it.
In a QA Lead contract oversight capacity, I contributed to the development of the foundational models that became Google Bard and Gemini. Working within established LaMDA evaluation frameworks, I was part of the international effort to define conversational baselines through adversarial training (red teaming) and safety policy auditing. My work involved high-volume quality control and creative writing to stress-test the models for SSI (Sensibleness and Specificity). My team acted as the critical human filter, providing the binary "pass/fail" feedback required to refine non-deterministic systems before public deployment. This experience gave me a deep, "under-the-hood" understanding of where AI excels and where it requires rigorous human governance to maintain brand integrity.
Expertise
Creative Leadership
I've run creative teams across multiple countries and time zones — briefing, directing and developing writers, art directors and producers for multinationals operating across global markets. I know how to set a creative standard at the top and make it land at every level of the team. Not just making great work — building the environment where other people make great work too.
Thinking and Strategy
Where everything starts. The brief is too wide, the problem isn't what they think it is, the insight is buried somewhere nobody's looked yet. Before a word gets written I need to know what the single true thing is. That's not strategy as a separate discipline — it's the foundation every piece of copy either has or doesn't.
Campaign Concepting and Copy
The big idea that unlocks everything else. The line that makes the room go quiet. Copy that earns attention rather than buying it — built around a human truth sharp enough to enter the culture and stay there. I've done this for governments, multinationals and global brands across every channel and every market.
AI and Creative Intelligence
I use AI the way I'd use a creative team — to generate, explore and pressure-test ideas faster than any one person can alone. But like any team, it needs a creative director. Someone who knows when the tone is off, when the voice has drifted, when the output looks right but feels wrong. That's the human filter. That's me.
HOW I WORK
Creative Director and writer in the same person. The brief doesn't get lost between strategy and execution. The voice doesn't shift between concept and copy. The idea doesn't get diluted by the time it reaches the page — because the person who found it is the same person writing it and leading the team delivering it.
Available for senior in-house roles, embedded engagements and campaign-based creative direction.