NRG Energy — Sr. Director, Creative & Digital
From sterile to human — a brand that is built to last.
I repositioned a Fortune 500 energy brand from legacy-corporate to human and future-facing — and built the in-house creative organization that set the standard for the entire company.
The Challenge
NRG’s brand was dead on the page. Blue gradients and corporate sterility — closer to a healthcare company than to a business betting on the future of energy.
After acquiring Vivint in 2023, NRG was ready to grow up: to look like the serious technology-and-energy company it intended to become — for investors, employees, and future partners. But there was almost no creative structure to make that happen. A few designers. Little project management. And the higher-end work farmed out to agencies whose output never matched the brand.
Before
My Role
I was brought over from Vivint — where I had built the in-house team NRG’s brand leadership called the best they had ever seen — with a mandate from the executive over the corporate and employer brand, under the direction of a new CEO steering the company into its next chapter.
Two jobs, at once: rebuild that kind of creative organization for NRG, and lead a ground-up refresh of the corporate brand.
I owned the creative vision, the team design, and the brand strategy. I partnered with corporate brand marketing and executives on the repositioning. The craft was executed by the team I built.
The Approach
I bet on senior, agency-level talent — in-house. I inherited a team of 14, brought three of my strongest creative leaders with me, and recruited from places like Amazon and top agencies — building to a peak team of 24. The bet: a team of director- and senior-level creatives would outproduce any roster of order-takers, and any outside agency. Not more designers. Better ones, operating higher.
I invested in operations, not just creativity. I brought in a director of project management and operations to build real intake, real briefs, real structure. Creative at scale needs a machine behind it — so we built one.
Story before style. Before we touched visual identity, we ran discovery sessions across the company to define the brand’s essence, values, and story. That work produced the brand’s strategic pillars — and, deliberately, a set of human attributes most energy companies would never claim for themselves: Real. Warm. Tenacious. Vibrant. The expression came second, on purpose. You can’t design what you can’t articulate.
I brought the highest-end work in-house — and structured for a bigger future. I refused the old belief that only outside agencies could do elevated work. We built the team to a vision larger than the moment required, because that’s what “ready for the future” actually means.
After
The Work
Below is a collection of work from projects the team developed under my leadership and direction.
NRG Brand System
A complete new brand — essence, values, a full brand book and online brand guide, and a new visual system built from the ground up.
For a full view of the results of our brand work, visit the NRG online brand guide:
Brand Book
Video Examples
Business Take Charge Campaign
Three films, a landing page, and a new visual world for telling NRG’s more complex “how we power the future” stories.
Campaigns exceeded expectations and industry benchmarks with high engagement, time on site and inquiries early in the campaign. This was maintained throughout each phase.
IMPRESSIONS: 59,170,829 (Campaign goal was 31M)
CLICKS: 449,801 (.76% CTR, $1.59 CPC)
30s TIME ON SITE: 46,996 (11% CVR)
INQUIRIES: 2,295 (4.88%)
NRG Microsite Experiences
Two award-winning interactive experiences that helped solidify the part of the brand expression that solved the “what” and the “how” of NRG’s products, services, and vision for the future.
Based on the vision developed for telling this part of the brand story, the in-house team developed the look, feel, and content and then worked with exceptional partners at Loica and Rogue Studio for the animation and buildout.
Build Your Data Center won the Awwwards Site of the Day & World of NRG won an Awwwards Honorable Mention.
Visit the sites here:
The Outcome
One team set the creative standard for the entire enterprise. The new brand guide became the company standard — every sub-brand and consumer brand migrated onto the same platform. Leadership launched the refresh company-wide and put a new brand platform — The Studio — at the center of the organization, so every team could apply the brand with consistency.
Executive leadership publicly championed the refresh as a defining step in the company’s evolution. The elevated expression strengthened recruiting and helped project the confidence of a company entering a period of strong growth.
What It Took
Transformation this deep meets resistance. Bringing strategic creative in-house changes how people are used to working, and not everyone welcomes that at first.
I learned that producing exceptional work is only half of leadership. The other half is continually making the case for what strategic creative is worth — and building where an organization is ready to value it. It was the most accomplished year of my career, and it clarified exactly the kind of environment where I do my best work.