Born and raised in New Orleans, the son of a Cuban refugee, I spent my formative years drawing, noodling on cheap guitars, and painting murals of local hip hop stars on the sides of inner-city record stores. Since then? I’ve spent my adult life in a joyful, chaotic mix of creative pursuits. Some successful. Some questionable. All formative.

I came of age during MTV's hair metal era. My parents were surprisingly chill about a four-year-old mainlining music videos, which led to an unfortunate interest in David Lee Roth's solo career and a healthy obsession with INXS's "What You Need" and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” Around the same time, Nintendo hit the scene and melted my small brain. The blocky visual language, the 8-bit music, the labyrinthine worlds of Metroid all planted the seed for my fascination with digital design, though I didn't know it yet.

I was torn between science and art. So naturally, I tried to do both. I headed to Washington University in St. Louis planning to major in art while knocking out pre-med requirements on the side. My advisor said it was impossible. I assured them I was that rare unicorn who would defy the odds.

I was not a unicorn.

Art won out (to my father's horror), and I ditched medicine to dive into visual communication.

After college, I moved back to New Orleans to play music while cutting my teeth as a designer. I got my portfolio together and moved to NYC, landing at Modem Media (later acquired by Digitas) where I was introduced to the nascent field of digital marketing.

On the side, I played handmade percussion, guitar, and synths in indie dance-punk bands that were, to put it gently, commercially unsuccessful. But it was the magical, pre-high-rise days of Williamsburg, so it was a lot of fun.

Then, what started as a one-off performance art joke morphed into Faux Punk — a Daft Punk cover band that accidentally took me on tour across the country. The lesson? Pretending to make music is way more profitable than actually writing it.

Somewhere along the way, I sold an animated TV show about El Chapo to Warner Brothers — pitched as "Everybody Loves Raymond, but in Sinaloa." It was awesome. It never saw the light of day.

I spent too many late nights illustrating and producing animated shorts. Sometimes for Comedy Central. Sometimes for love.

And through it all, I maintained a painting practice decent enough to land art residencies, which keeps me honest and creatively stretched.

Over two decades, I've built a creative career that zigzags across big-name agencies, boutique studios, and tech unicorns. I co-founded Gravy Boat Regatta, a Brooklyn-based studio that evolved from entertainment shop to boutique ad agency to crypto-favorite branding partner.

As Creative Director at Ro, I led Roman's brand transformation from promo-heavy, transactional marketing to bold, top-of-funnel storytelling — spanning national campaigns, MLB partnerships and product launches.

At Nom Nom (now part of Mars), I led a full brand overhaul, launched national campaigns, and revamped the website. Yes, I oversaw a serious amount of dog shoots. Pomeranians included.

And most recently at Alma, a mental health provider marketplace, I came in ready to blow the whole thing up and start fresh, but a major acquisition had other plans. That’s OK though, we still built brand equity through incremental, high-emotion storytelling that resonates. After inheriting a leaderless creative team, I transformed them into a strategic growth engine. Two major campaigns later, both brand recognition and conversion numbers are climbing.

Along the way, I've worked across just about every medium: UX/UI, animation, TVC, experiential, live events. Some very specific personal highlights? Animating the pylon at the Indy 500. Live-tweeting Bud Light's Super Bowl campaign. Writing and directing national TV spots about erectile dysfunction that were actually funny (even if Disney/ABC needed a last-minute edit). Making TV spots with Tony Award-winning Kristin Chenoweth to sell fancy dog food.

These days, I'm a dad of two. That means less painting. More childcare. More cleaning. So much cleaning. Occasionally I cook up something spicy and with an irresponsible amount of butter.