Welcome to Hoza. My portfolio site.

This site has some of favorite work. I like smart work — work that doesn't follow others, that might not be the prettiest but it has moved users to take a positive action.

I'm not the typical Creative Director even though I have the eyeglasses and jeans. I love to solve problems. Sometimes that's a creative assignment. Sometimes that's fixing a client relationship. Or fixing an agency. I thrive on challenges and helping build teams that work seamlessly to build brands with truly creative strategy and ideas.

If you're in the mood to read, here's some of my history.

I started out in the middle of Connecticut working at small agencies. We did everything and that started my constant need to learn more and more.

Soon I came to NYC and landed at Draft (now FCB). There I learned Direct Marketing from one of advertising's greats, Emily Soell. She showed me how DM wasn't boring and that strategy needs to live in your creative concepts.

Then I joined MVBMS EuroRSCG (now Havas) and learned to build brands — I got to do lots and lots of TV, print and started to jump into digital.

As I left MVBMS, I decided I needed to learn more. Luckily for me, I started to work for another advertising great, Bruce Lee at Ogilvy. I took on the 360 approach to building brands and created everything for the campaigns; TV, print, DM, POP, digital media and sitelets. Bruce's direction was to always create great concepts because without a truly great concept 360 work just falls apart and seems like matching wallpaper rather a cohesive idea that elevates the brand.

I decided my days of 360 were over. it was time to dive into digital. I found myself at imc2. There I meet some of my closet friends and cherished co-workers. My digital knowledge skyrocketed because of openness of the teams and how they knew that technology was only a part of the work — the most important part was the idea.

My trails lead me to McGarryBowen. I jumped into a chaotic world of disorder and tension. McGarry had just won Verizon Wireless. Over 50 freelancers were brought in with no one to organize or even prioritize work. I asked another advertising great, Steve Hicks if he wanted me to handle it — yes.

A new opportunity came my way. Client-side role. But it was for a start-up — TheLadders.com. It was a tough choice, but they needed branding, better design and more solid marketing. It was another great choice because I worked with some pioneers. I was taught Lean UX and Design Studio from two of the founders of the technique, Jeff Gothelf and Will Evans. I hired a technology/design maven who challenged everyone and everything to be better using Saas — Jen Gergen. And we also did that Agile thing with 6-8 scrums teams, so I hope I've dropped enough popular terms.

I graduated from RIT — Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration.