Creative Direction
Built for the big stage.
I led the creative direction of six IAMPHENOM conferences from 2018–2025, shaping the event brand, keynote storytelling, presentation systems, and visual experience as the conference grew in scale and ambition. What started with me designing nearly every presentation evolved into directing a larger creative ecosystem across internal teams, leadership, and specialist production partners.
ROLE
Creative Director
TIMELINE
2018-2025 (6 events)
TEAM
All Phenom · ADM Creative
SCOPE
Event Branding · Keynotes
CHALLENGE
The better it got, the harder it was to beat.
Over six IAMPHENOM conferences, the event evolved from a traditional user conference into a major storytelling platform for the company.
Every successful year raised expectations for the next. What impressed people once quickly became the standard, so we had to keep pushing the creative, the storytelling, and the experience forward without losing what made the event feel like Phenom.
- 180
- Attendees in 2018
- 3,000
- Attendees in 2025
APPROACH
I treated IAMPHENOM as one connected creative system, not a collection of presentations and event assets.
In the early years, I stayed close to the work, shaping the event brand, building keynotes and breakout decks, and working directly with our CEO on the story.
As the event grew, my role shifted toward creative direction. I built systems that could scale, gave internal teams and partners a clear framework to work from, and stayed closest to the highest stakes storytelling moments.
MAKING SENSE OF THE CHAOS
Executive stories rarely arrived as finished narratives. My job was to turn dense, constantly evolving inputs into a clear visual story an audience could follow.
CREATION
The creative evolved with the event.
By 2023, breakout rooms were using 3:1 widescreen decks while the main stage stretched to custom canvases approaching 7:1. Those formats changed how we told stories and pushed us to think beyond traditional presentation design.
I focused heavily on the CEO keynotes, using imagery, analogies, humor, and visual reveals to simplify complex ideas and create stronger audience moments. As the event scaled, templates and systems helped the broader team carry that standard across the rest of the experience.
RAISING THE BAR
2024 marked a major leap forward for IAMPHENOM, turning the brand into a more immersive stage experience built around scale, storytelling, and spectacle.
YOU'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER DECK
A 100-foot center screen, two 40-foot side screens, and multiple live camera configurations meant every keynote had to be designed for the production environment, not just dropped into a standard presentation template.
DESIGNING THE ATMOSPHERE
The stage was designed to do more than present content. For meditation sessions, immersive nature scenes, wraparound screens, and illuminated walkways transformed the room into a completely different experience.
IMMERSIVE BY DESIGN
In 2025, the LED floor became an extension of the stage itself. For the opening meditation, a waterfall flowed from the backwall down the center aisle, surrounding the speaker with one continuous visual experience.
CINEMATIC STORYTELLING
A storytelling slide from IAM25. Starting with a 2001: A Space Odyssey reference, I translated the CEO’s idea into a visual sequence that gave the keynote opening a more cinematic and memorable build.
IMPACT
IAMPHENOM became one of the clearest expressions of the Phenom brand.
Attendance grew from roughly 180 people in 2018 to around 3,000 by 2025, and the creative experience had to grow with it. Year after year, attendees consistently called out the presentations, stage design, and overall visual experience as standout parts of the event.
What started with me building nearly everything evolved into a creative system that internal teams and partners could carry forward, while I stayed focused on the highest stakes moments and the overall creative bar.
- 6
- Flagship events
- 25K
- Slides created
- 16X
- Attendance Growth
