InHOWse Managers Conference Speakers

We’ve brought together a whole host of in-house veterans and creative consultants who’ve
walked in your shoes and understand the particular challenges you face.
 
We'll be updating who they are over the next few days so be sure to check back here
for updates!


Glenn John Arnowitz
Director of Creative Services
Pfizer
Glenn is Director of Creative Services for Pfizer, as well as a musician, composer, writer, actor and speaker—always looking for new ways to scratch that insatiable creative itch.

He is a frequent contributor to a variety of design publications and blogs, and has presented at the HOW Design Conference, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Toronto Design Thinkers Conference, the Deloitte Design Summit, the University and College Design Association Conference (UCDA) and Kean University.

As co-founder of InSource, Glenn is passionately committed to helping in-house creatives achieve design excellence and recognition within their companies and the business community.
 
Sessions:
12. The In-House Survival Guide - IHMC
 
Andy Brenits
President
InSource

Andy is the Creative Services Leader for Arizona Public Service (APS) and President of InSource. He began his career working for design studios in Manhattan before moving to in-house positions at Banana Republic, Gap, and the National Football League. He managed his own design consultancy for 10 years before returning in-house in 2007 to establish and lead the design and production team at KPMG, and again at APS in Phoenix beginning in 2012.

Andy is passionate about how design can be used to increase and drive profitability when used effectively and consistently. An inspired design leader, he is accomplished at driving strategy and process for creative teams and has a strong record in building, managing and leading creative teams that deliver exceptional business results and creative ideas.

In addition to his BFA in Graphic Design from the School of Visual Arts, Andy holds a Masters Degree in Design Management from Pratt Institute. He taught Design Management in the Graduate Communications Design program at Pratt and undergraduate design courses at Rowan University. He served as a panelist at the In-HOWse Managers Conference in 2012 and has led roundtables for InSource on career paths, metrics and proving value for in-house teams. He is co-editor of the InHOWse design blog and advisor to HOW University.


Sessions:
1. Welcome and InSource Recognition - IHMC
 
Rena Delevie
Owner
The Roundtable Business
Rena DeLevie is a Creative Operations Business Coach and the Chief Operating Officer of Dress For Success Worldwide. She approaches business with a warm heart towards people, creativity and the process, and with a cold eye on the bottom line. This has led to Rena being given a few nicknames including, “COO of the Creative Process”, “the Vault” and “How may I help you?”

Rena has over 26 years in the corporate sector with a touch of nonprofit; first as an art director for 8 years, then in Creative Operations/Management. She’s managed teams of up to 150 people (on-site and remotely), budgets up to 128 million and workload volumes of up to 6,000 projects annually. Her clients include Autotrader, Cella Consulting, Cole Haan, David Yurman, J.Crew, JPMorgan, Kenneth Cole Productions, Merck, Saint-Gobain Corporation and UBS.
 
Sessions:
7. How to Manage a Creative Team - IHMC
 
Johnny Earle aka Johnny Cupcakes
Founder
Johnny Cupcakes
At age 19—with a learning disability and no investors—Johnny started an independent, family run, multimillion dollar, experience-based t-shirt brand out of the trunk of his beat up '89 Camry. Johnny does not sell baked goods, however, he sells and displays t-shirts with dessert-themed graphics on them inside of refrigerators and vintage ovens at his frosting-scented faux-bakeries in Boston, Los Angeles and London. Although Johnny tricks hungry people daily, JC has dedicated customers around the globe who camp out for days for his special edition t-shirts, while thousands of die-hard customers have the brands logo tattooed on themselves.

Johnny has been recognized for his innovative business strategies; he has been named America's #1 Young Entrepreneur by BusinessWeek as well as placed #237  in Inc. Magazine's top 500 fastest growing independent businesses. The Boston Globe recently named Johnny as one of the 30 most innovative businessmen in Massachusetts. Johnny Cupcakes has also been featured on NPR, MTV, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine, Web Marketing for Dummies, The New York Times, MSNBC, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, Wired Magazine, WWD, NYLON,Computer Arts, The Los Angeles Times and as a case study in numerous text books.

Sessions:
Reinventing Your Ideas: How the Little Things Yield Big Results - HDC, DPDC, IHMC, CFC
 
Andy Epstein
Head of The BOSS Group
Merck
Andy Epstein started his career as a freelance designer and illustrator. Jumping into the world of in-house in 1992, Andy created and grew in-house design teams for Commonwealth Toy and Gund. He later restructured and expanded the hundred-person creative team at Bristol-Myers-Squibb and consulted at Johnson & Johnson. After a three-year stint at Designer Greetings leading an in-house design team responsible for the company’s product lines and Point Of Sales materials, Andy has moved back into pharma heading up a 65+ managed services team for The BOSS Group at Merck.

Andy has written and spoken extensively on in-house issues and published The Corporate Creative, a book on in-house design, in partnership with F+W Media, in the spring of 2010. He is a co-founder of InSource, an association dedicated to providing support to in-house designers and design team managers and recently completed a four-year engagement as head of Initiative, the AIGA In-house Design program where he continued his efforts to empower in-house teams and raise their stature in the design and business communities.

Sessions:
6. Working With Outside Agencies - IHMC
10. INside In-House: Project Management – Controlled Chaos - IHMC
IHMC Workshop: Sign-up, School-up, Re-up: An Introduction to Recruiting, Interviewing, Hiring and Professional-Development Best Practices - (Extra Fee Required)
 
Donna Farrugia
Executive Director
The Creative Group
Donna Farrugia is executive director of The Creative Group, a specialized staffing firm placing interactive, design and marketing professionals on a project and full-time basis. In this position, she manages operations for the firm’s locations in major markets throughout the United States and Canada.

Donna has presented at industry events, including the HOW Design Conference and American Advertising Federation National Conference, and has contributed articles on career-related topics to various publications. Donna has more than 25 years of marketing, business development and management experience and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh.

Sessions:
3. Bright Lights, Big Future: 5 Trends Affecting Every In-House Creative Team - IHMC
 
Sam Harrison
Author
Sam Harrison is an in-demand speaker and best-selling author on creativity-related topics and pitching/presentation skills. He has years of successful experience in agency, corporate and consulting roles. He was also a senior vice president of branding, marketing and creative services with an S&P 500 firm.

He provides keynotes, workshops and coaching to organizations throughout North America and beyond. He also teaches at Portfolio Center’s graduate studies program.

His books include IdeaSelling: Successfully pitch your great ideas to bosses, clients and other decision makers, IdeaSpotting: How to find your next great idea and Zing: Five steps and 101 tips for creativity on command. He is also a frequent contributor to HOW, Fast Company and other publications.

 
Todd Henry
Founder & CEO
Accidental Creative
Todd Henry is the founder and CEO of Accidental Creative, a company that helps creative people and teams be prolific, brilliant, and healthy. Todd’s book The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice offers strategies for how creative pros can thrive in the marketplace and has been called “one of the best books to date on how to structure your ideas, and manage the creative process and work that comes out of it” by Jack Covert, author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.

Sessions:
13. Closing Keynote: Be A Laser, Not A Lighthouse - IHMC
 
Scott Kirkwood
Senior Director
National Parks Conservation Association
Scott Kirkwood began his publishing career in Troy, Michigan, editing coupon books (yes, coupon books) but ever since moving to Washington, DC, in 1994 he’s been writing and editing for nonprofit organizations including the Humane Society of the United States and the Child Welfare League of America. For the last eight years he’s worked at the National Parks Conservation Association, where he oversees the group’s magazine and other publications. And even though it’s impossible to pick a favorite national park, he knows you’ll insist on asking, so he’ll reluctantly say Zion National Park in Utah.

Sessions:
9. In-House Overhaul: A Case Study in Strategic Transformation - IHMC
 
Austin Kleon
Best-Selling Author
Austin Kleon is a writer, artist, speaker, and New York Times best-selling author. His work has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, Time, The Atlantic, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. Now he’s brought his depth and range of experience as a creator to his new book, Steal Like An Artist, an illustrated manifesto for creativity in the digital age.

Steal Like An Artist is a lesson in applied creativity. It’s based on a list Austin drew up one day of key insights he wishes he’d known when he started out. He boiled them down into pithy phrases: “Steal like an artist,” “Use your hands,” “Creativity is subtraction,” and many more. He turned that list into a talk, the text and slides from the talk “rocked the creative world” (GalleyCat) and went viral— and since it’s been online, the original blog post has reached millions of readers.

Austin is also the author of Newspaper Black-out, a collection of poetry made by redacting newspaper articles with a permanent marker. His art has been called “brilliant” by New York magazine and The New Yorker said his poems “resurrect the newspaper when everyone else is declaring it dead.” Austin speaks on creativity, visual thinking, and being an artist online.

Sessions:
HOW Design Live Opening Keynote - 1. How to Steal Like an Artist
 
Michael Lejeune
Creative Director
LA Metro
Michael Lejeune is Creative Director for LA Metro, leading a team who create all things visual for the nation’s third-largest transit system, including advertising, environmental design, timetables, maps, fare media and customer information, fleet design, websites and mobile tools, and merchandising.

In 2006, the American Public Transportation Association honored Metro as “America’s Best”, and Metro’s design work is in AIGA’s National Design Archives. More than 100 awards include ReBrand 100’s Global “Best Of” and recognition from AIA, SEGD, PRSA, the USDOT, the NEA, Harvard University, EMBARQ/World Research Institute and the World Bank.

Michael is a past president of AIGA's Los Angeles chapter and co-chairs AIGA’s 100th Anniversary effort. He lives in South Pasadena, California.

Sessions:
5. Re-Invention: Staying Fresh - IHMC
 
Stefan Mumaw
Creative Director, Purveyor of All That Rocks
Callahan Creek
Stefan Mumaw is the Creative Director and Provider of All That Rocks at Callahan Creek, a Kansas City-area ad agency. He has authored six books, the most recent being Creative Boot Camp, a 30-day crash course on creativity. Previously, he authored Chasing the Monster Idea, co-authored Caffeine for the Creative Team and Caffeine for the Creative Mind with Wendy Lee Oldfield, as well as Redesigning Websites and Simple Websites. He has spoken at numerous creative industry gatherings over the years and has been known to embarrass himself and those around him if given the opportunity.

Sessions:
4. In-house Up Close and Personal - IHMC
HDC Workshop: Creative Fuel: A Laboratory Workshop for Nitro-Charging Your Idea Output (Extra Fee Required)
13. Creative Boot Camp: Generate Ideas in Greater Quantity & Quality in 60 Minutes - HDC
 
Annie Riker
Graphic Designer
National Parks Conservation Association
Annie Riker has considered herself a designer ever since she was old enough to hold a paintbrush. She received her BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2003. Before graduation, Annie was hired on at ChaseDesign, in Central New York. She moved to D.C. in 2006, and continued to develop her creative skills at Hirshorn Zuckerman Design Group. In 2010, she realized her passion for nonprofits that aligned with her own personal values, which led her to become the in-house designer for NPCA. Riker has won several InHOWse awards for NPCA's annual report and annual dinner invitations.

Sessions:
9. In-House Overhaul: A Case Study in Strategic Transformation - IHMC
 
Jackie Schaffer
Vice President and General Manager
Cella Consulting
Jackie Schaffer, vice president and general manager of Cella Consulting, is a former in-house leader who has consulted for teams of all sizes, including Fortune 500 clients, government entities, and educational institutions. Cella helps creative leaders and their teams identify and execute strategic priorities, so they can increase their effectiveness and focus on creating high-quality creative. Cella is a co-author of the In-House Creative Services Industry Report and authors weekly blogs on business operations topics pertinent to the role of creative leaders.

Sessions:
8. Chargebacks: A Double-Edged Sword - IHMC
IHMC Workshop: Sign-up, School-up, Re-up: An Introduction to Recruiting, Interviewing, Hiring and Professional-Development Best Practices (Extra Fee Required)
 
Jim Woods
Creative Director, Aquatic Division
United Pet Group
Jim Woods is the Creative Director of United Pet Group’s Aquatic division, makers of pretty much everything related to fish, aquariums, ponds and reptiles. If you’ve ever bought a Tetra, Marineland, Instant Ocean, Jungle, or any of another half dozen other brands of fish stuff, you’ve bought the work of Jim and his team. He and his department create the collateral surrounding United’s entire myriad of industry-leading aquatic brands. They also contribute to research & development, influence product design and consult on business decisions outside the traditional role of graphic designers.

Prior to working with United Pet Group, Jim worked for the Baltimore and Washington D.C. division of Clear Channel Communications and has over thirteen years of in-house design experience.

Sessions:
11. The Art of Saying No: Setting Yourself Up for Success - IHMC