ABOUT ME
An experienced Creative Services Director, I specialize in guiding creative teams and serving as a liaison between the creative department and sales, IT, and clients, I specialize in increasing efficiency and team cohesion. With an extensive 26-year journey in creative design and production spanning all disciplines, I have honed my skills in managing creative teams and spearheading projects for renowned market leaders like Warner Bros, Disney, Hilton, Petco, AT&T, ESPN, and more. My expertise extends across international packaging, web, and tradeshow projects, navigating the intricacies of marketing, digital, internet, packaging, and print industries.
Currently, I serve as the Director of Creative Services at Dr. Schulze's American Botanical Pharmacy. In this role, I reorganized the creative services department using new processes, innovative solutions, project management software training, and cloud-based file system restructuring. By implementing new workflows and utilizing program timelines and milestones for forecasting and progress tracking, I significantly improved departmental efficiency and output.
Adept in business, engineering, and design, I'm currently pursuing PMP and Six Sigma Black Belt certifications to further augment my capabilities. My experience as a designer and team leader has equipped me with in-depth knowledge of creative software, processes, visual communication, team building, and client management.
In my previous role at QuidelOrtho as a Senior Process Improvement & Creative Project Management Specialist, I collaborated with cross-functional teams, vendors, and clients, leveraging AI and RPA technology to optimize project management workflows. Through strategic restructuring and implementing best practices, I significantly boosted on-time project delivery from 21% to 83%, fostering client satisfaction and team cohesion.
Proficient in project management tools such as Smartsheet, Asana, Workfront, Monday.com, and Jira, I excel in planning, organization, implementation, and execution. My strengths lie in team leadership, time management, and a relentless passion for multi-disciplinary integration and goal-oriented problem-solving.
Developer | Activator | Maximizer | Stabilizer
Experience
DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE SERVICES
American Botanical Pharmacy, Los Angeles, CA — 2024
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Directed a comprehensive program managing 125 active products, overseeing packaging, digital asset creation, and new product launches to ensure cohesive brand representation.
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Managed a network of printing vendors nationwide, providing offset, flexographic, and digital printing services, ensuring high-quality production for packaging, newsletters, and print media.
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Streamlined the creative department by mapping current flow, implementing new processes, quality control approval gates, project timelines, and extending these improvements to marketing and retail deliverables.
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Established and maintained a digital asset management (DAM) system, creating a single source-of-truth library for 125 products with ongoing synchronization, change logs and automatic backups.
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rained creative and marketing staff on project management software, new processes, and standardized operating procedures, balancing workloads and enhancing collaboration and communication within the teams.
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RESULTS: Achieved a 65% increase in error-free, on-time delivery of creative requests, packaging changes, and digital initiatives, enhancing efficiency without increasing man hours.
Led and unified a team of internal and remote creatives and developers, fostering full team buy-in and forming a highly cohesive department.
Senior Project & Process Improvement Manager
QuidelOrtho, San Diego, CA — 2022-2023
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Restructured the North American Marketing Communications project workflow from intake to delivery. Completed process mapping utilizing stakeholder interviews, workflow analysis, and process improvement best practices to improve efficiency and reduce bottlenecks while tracking improvements in key metrics.
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Project managed day to day late or at risk initiatives, while empowering members to drive on-track projects as a team. Monitored process for issues, held daily separate morning meetings with management and with creative staff for new intakes, to review progress, assign work and plan the next steps. Coordinated all print efforts, including planning, technical printing specifications, for both offset, digital, and tradeshow booth productions.
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Built standard asset timelines for accurate time estimations, to manage client expectations and to maintain an increasing share of projects on track. Applied workload balancing techniques and increased team size to add capacity.
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Offered management visibility to the process and KPIs measured and visualized on detailed dashboards and reports, demonstrating patterns over time, suggesting cause and mitigation strategies. Evaluated both clients and creative team members for efficiency, and supported them when possible, in facing obstacles to improve.
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Rolled out new proofing system. Trained and supported team members and internal clients on new software as well as process adjustments.
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RESULTS: Demonstrated improved projects delivery duration and quality, better team cooperation, higher client satisfaction.
Senior Project Manager & Process Improvement Specialist
West Coast University, Los Angeles, CA — 2022
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Managed day-to-day project timelines & milestones in waterfall and agile methodologies. Led internal client-facing communications and alignments. Managed internal stakeholders including project managers, creative services, CRM, DevOps and marketing operations.
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Defined and improve internal processes with process maps to overcome operational obstacles and implemented change management techniques.
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Aligned with department directors on expectations, short-term and long-term goals. Project planning and execution, reporting on key milestones using Smartsheet timelines, dashboards, automations and stakeholder notifications.
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Worked with creative services project managers and outside agencies on driving and delivering print and digital projects using Adobe Workfront, Salesforce, WebDam, Azure DevOps, Creative Cloud and Adobe Express.
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Restructured email creation process from request to delivery. Worked with stakeholders, including requesters, creative services, project managers, copywriters, compliance and Salesforce Marketing Cloud programmers to map the process, improve and implement a new, faster, templated workflow.
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RESULTS: Successfully managed individual client relationships and projects. On-time project deliveries and cross-team communications for print and digital initiatives and student communications. Identified and implemented new opportunities for process improvements
Project & Process Improvement Manager
Petco Health & Wellness Company, San Diego, CA — 2021-2022
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Reinvented and implemented new projects workflows across the integrated marketing department, from intake to execution, with ongoing support, documentation and improvement measurements. Created, trained and managed a system of intelligent timelines, offering channels capacity heat maps, top-level view dashboards and automatic stakeholder notifications.
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Conducted research, interviews, and collected lists of current obstacles and workflow pain points from marketing leadership and directors across 4 marketing channels and 14 creative services channels.
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Mapped out improved processes proposals using automations, notifications, conditional formatting and process consolidations. Worked in collaboration with leading stakeholders to achieve buy-ins and further system improvements. Proposed final system layout functionality and document solutions.
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Maintained support materials, FAQs and regular office hours to train & onboard further stakeholders while supporting current ones. Accepted, triaged and tracked maintenance requests. Collected enhancement requests for next version system rollout. Explored software modules and upgrades.
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RESULTS: Improved project on-time delivery, cross-team communication, organization, visibility and progress. Better communication with executives, clients and vendors. A measured increase in employee and partner satisfaction and reduced turnover, helping departmental capacity.
Client-Facing Creative Service Project Manager
CAS Branding Inc., Los Angeles, CA — 2019-2021
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Led client-facing creative project planning and execution for a variety of industries. Directed and recruited a team of creatives and developers to support printing, packaging, tradeshow and web projects.
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Restructured communication schedules with outside agencies and current clients, to increase responsiveness, manage expectations and improve on-time delivery of raw assets needed for projects to stay on track.
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Created and maintained a central digital assets management system containing lifestyle and product photography, branding elements and vector assets, to support a global design team, printers, fulfillment sources and sales staff.
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Tracked and reported on enhancement requests and development efforts in order to provide visibility senior management with timelines for expected changes/improvements and team training.
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Advised and trained non-technical teams on technical solutions to internal challenges using a multitude of project management and scheduling software as well as visual dashboards for KPIs.
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RESULTS: High client retention, including Warner Bros., Universal, Caesar’s Palace, AT&T, Disney and Minute Maid, leading to loyalty and repeat business. Process improvement & upgrade as well as steady information flow & communication between departments, leading to faster project executions, historical tracking data and overall efficiency.
Creative Service Cross-Channel Project Manager
Growing Naturals Plant Proteins, Los Angeles, CA — 2008-2019
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Led and facilitated improved communication and workflow between advertising, marketing, creative, media, digital and production departments. Introduced automation to monitor progress and departmental goals, key milestone dates and delivery schedules.
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Streamlined the planning for an annual cycle of international tradeshows, a growing line of products, brochures, websites, marketing campaigns and presentations with revamped project timelines.
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RESULTS: A successful launch of a line of flavored plant proteins featuring 45 SKUs, sold at Whole Foods, Sprouts, Pavilions, Amazon and international retail locations in multiple languages.
Education
2000-2003
B.A. Business & Marketing
California State University, Northridge, CA
The business administration and marketing program encompasses a wide range of essential subjects, including marketing plans, business plans, economics, management, and business operations, equipping students with the knowledge and skills necessary to develop effective marketing strategies, drive business growth, understand economic principles, and effectively manage day-to-day business operations.
1998-2000
Design & Visual Communication
University of California,
Los Angeles, CA
The visual communication program offers a comprehensive curriculum with a strong emphasis on web, packaging, and print design and production, providing students with a solid mastery of design principles, production techniques, and proficiency in video and web software. Additionally, the program fosters a deep understanding of creative concepts and client services, preparing students to thrive in diverse creative industries.
1996-1998
Engineering & Applied Sciences
Valley College, Los Angeles, CA
The engineering and applied science Associate degree program, with a focused emphasis on physics, chemistry, and calculus, empowers students to develop essential skills such as logical problem solving, coding, deductive reasoning and analytical analysis, preparing them to excel in various disciplines and contribute to innovative solutions in the field.
