NRG Energy — Sr. Director, Creative & Digital
From sterile to human — and built to last, in-house.
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.
The old NRG brand — a few "before" examples.
My Role
I was brought over from Vivint — where I’d built the in-house team NRG’s brand leadership called the best they’d 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.
Brand book spreads, the new visual system, discovery/strategy artifacts.
The Work
Delivered by the team I built.
Brand System
Essence, values, a full brand book and online brand guide, and a new visual system built from the ground up.
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.
World of NRG & Build Your Data Center
An award-winning interactive microsite experience.
Physical, Email & Employer Brand
A physical interactive table installed at headquarters, a rebranded HQ, a rebuilt email program, and a new employer value proposition.
Take Charge films (embed), microsite screens, the interactive table, email templates — this is the showcase-heavy section.
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.
The Take Charge campaign beat every benchmark:
59.1M impressions against a 31M goal — 90% over target
0.76% CTR at $1.59 CPC
11% conversion on 30-second engaged sessions
Awwwards Site of the Day + an Honorable Mention for the interactive experiences.
A rebuilt email program: 29.6% average open and 19.7% average click across 13 campaigns in the first month — improving every month after.
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.
Awards badges, campaign performance graphic, executive-facing brand book.
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.