I've explained a platform shift to marketers twice. This is the third.
The first two times, I had to argue for it. This time the demo does most of the arguing... which makes the other part of the job more important, not less.
Scroll the timeline ↓Shift 01 / Web 2.0 meets PR and IR
Shift one — the web learns to talk back (2002–2010)
I started as an editor.
Creative writing degree, first job editing press releases at PR Newswire. It's where the compression instinct comes from, and the "DW" sign-off I still use.
What it taught me: Say it shorter. Then check it's still true.
Then I became the guy explaining what was coming.
I ran some of the biggest agency accounts, but the real job was traveling and teaching PR, IR and marketing audiences what social, RSS, search and blogger relations were about to do to their profession. In 2007 I was giving keynotes to hundreds and running workshops with executives from Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and GoPro on the future of the social media. Those seminars and keynotes are what got me recruited to PepsiCo.
What it taught me: The work isn't being early. It's walking a skeptical room from "this is hype" to "here's what the future looks like."
Shift 02 / Content and creators inside big brands
Shift two — content becomes an operation (2010–2017)
A bodega is a media platform, if you squint.
I was one of two founding PepsiCo people behind Creators League and the Digital Studio, an internal creative agency before that was a normal thing to build. We ran the first influencer programs in PepsiCo's history, with Vine creators. The VICE × Brisk Bodega system moved Brisk brand equity 12 points. I also advised on the Gatorade Mission Control 2.0 build.
What it taught me: Put the brand where the attention already is, then build the system that keeps it there.
A listening tool that ended up paying for itself.
#MyPlayoffsStory drove about a billion organic impressions with a team of roughly ten. Separately, I turned the league's social-listening tool into shared revenue infrastructure for the teams... about a million dollars in year one.
What it taught me: The best tool is often the one you already own, pointed at a different problem.
Where I learned how big companies actually change.
My first executive role, and the chapter where I grew most. I won a multi-round case to bring work in-house, and I helped put a regulated salesforce on social media safely. Terrance Williams arrived with a strategy so clear he put it on everyone's desk. Some people saw a paperweight. I saw a North Star.
What it taught me: New channels don't fail on technology. They fail on permission, and permission is designed.
2017. New York to Helsinki.
One-way ticket, for the Finnair job.
A global team, a real budget, six months to prove it.
I led a global team of 20+ on a €30M budget with influence over €500M+ in revenue. Performance ROI went up 26% in six months.
What it taught me: Scale doesn't forgive vague strategy. It just makes it more expensive.
Rebuilding from the sales side.
I tripled Nordic revenue in year one and grew the book from under ten accounts to about thirty.
What it taught me: Selling the platform teaches you what marketers actually buy. It's rarely what the deck says.
Marketing and people, at the same time.
I ran marketing and people at once and helped drive monthly recurring revenue from 15K to 250K while the team went from 6 to 32. I rebuilt the brand along the way.
What it taught me: Hiring is a positioning problem too.
Shift 03 / AI in creative and content operations
Shift three — AI enters creative operations (2025–now)
The third shift. From the inside this time.
I led marketing on a launch that became the studio's best in eight or nine years. Then came the mandate to build an AI center of excellence in creative operations. That's the work I'm doing right now, inside a company that already works... which is the hard version. Remix Digital is where I take what I'm learning to other teams.
What it taught me: Your job isn't to hold the pen. It's to direct the workflow.
Same answer, different decade.
Every shift looks new. The organizational answers mostly aren't. Drag to see the rhyme.
An internal creative agency inside PepsiCo.
An AI creative center of excellence.
The numbers I'll defend on a call.
Figures belong to the roles I held, not to Remix Digital clients.
How I work
Assume good intent.
Most friction is a missing decision, not a bad actor.
Disagree and commit.
Argue hard in the room, then back the call outside it.
Say the honest number.
Including when the answer is that you're fine.
I cycle, I build more side projects than I finish, and I play chess seriously enough to have built myself a tutor for the Catalan. Slow positional openings... which probably says more about how I do strategy than I'd like.
Who I work with
Heads of marketing and founders at consumer-facing companies (apps, D2C, subscription, media, sports and financial services) with roughly 20 to 200 people and three to fifteen marketers. I'm in Helsinki and work in person around the capital region and remotely across the Nordics and the US. I'm not the right fit for enterprises with long procurement cycles, for solo operators without a team yet, or for companies whose buyers are engineers.
Three shifts. Same job every time.
Get there early, then make it useful for everyone else. If you're in the middle of the third one, that's the conversation I'd like to have.