The longer version
I started my career at RKG — a boutique SEM firm in Charlottesville, Virginia — back when "data-driven marketing" was something people were figuring out in real time. I learned early that good marketing lives at the intersection of rigorous analysis and genuine human understanding. That combination became my thing.
From RKG I moved through a series of increasingly complex marketing challenges. At SnapCap, a fast-growing small business lender, I was the only marketer — which meant building everything from scratch. I owned acquisition, retention, and analytics, and helped grow the business to acquisition by LendingTree in 2017. That experience gave me something I've leaned on ever since: confidence that you can build a lot with very little, if you're focused.
LendingTree was a different kind of education. I ran product marketing for a six-product consumer portfolio including credit cards, personal loans, and business lending — and in Q1 2020, COVID hit while I was in the middle of it. Category revenues fell 80–87% in a single quarter. No playbook. I replaced conventional planning cycles with a daily performance trading cadence, making real-time budget and channel decisions on evolving data. We protected unit economics. We kept partner relationships intact. It was the hardest professional period I've had, and the most instructive.
Later at LendingTree I moved into Marketing Operations, where I architected the integration of 13 acquisitions into a unified MarTech and revenue stack. It was there that I became genuinely obsessed with the infrastructure underneath marketing — the data pipelines, the measurement architecture, the stack that either unlocks or limits what's possible.
That obsession followed me to TaxSlayer, where I joined as Head of Digital Marketing and was promoted to CMO following the company's acquisition by Marlin Equity Partners. Over three years, I led a team of 23 across brand, creative, performance, lifecycle, and product marketing — and rebuilt the marketing function from the ground up.
Throughout all of it, I've been paying close attention to AI — what it can actually do for marketing, where it creates real leverage, and where the hype outruns the reality. I'm in the early stages of building something around that. More on that soon.
I grew up in Mt. Pleasant, SC — moved there in 1995, and the Lowcountry has been home ever since. We're five minutes from Sullivan's Island, which means mornings on the water are a regular thing. We're members of Freedom Boat Club, which is one of those ideas that makes you wonder why it took so long to exist.
Most days start with some form of exercise. I lift weights and have a setup in the garage for when I don't feel like leaving the house. I do vinyasa flow yoga a couple of times a week — it's one of those things I was skeptical of and now can't imagine not doing.
I grew up playing soccer and basketball. Our family spent most weekends driving across the Southeast for tournaments, which is a particular kind of childhood that stays with you.
I live in Charleston with my family and our two dogs and a cat, all of whom have strong opinions about how the day should be spent.
