Los Angeles 2025

As Head of Production at Deutsch LA, Diego leads broadcast, film, music, content, print and experiential production teams across all brands, including Taco Bell, Walmart, Nintendo, Dr Pepper, Peacock, Lowe’s, Adobe, PetSmart, Nerdwallet and more.

In addition to leading agency production teams, Diego runs Steelhead- Deutsch's own 50,000 sq ft production company comprised of in-house directors, makers, offline editors, animators, motion graphics and VFX artists. Steelhead regularly produces with non-agency brands like Yonex, Interscope Records, Drizly, the Ad Council and others.

Previously as Head of US Broadcast Production at R/GA, Diego led production teams across all six US offices and produced national broadcast and online films for global brands including Samsung, Google, Nike, Amazon, The Ad Council, Netflix, eBay, Jet.com, Quaker and Beats by Dre. An Emmy-winning film producer, Diego has produced award-winning work such as the wildly successful “Love Has No Labels” short film for The Ad Council and the 4-part “Hear What You Want” film series for Beats by Dre.

Outside of work, Diego is a big film buff and his passions include travel, swimming, board games and spending time with his dog, Ducky.

Autumn is the Los Angeles based Head of Production at Quality Meats with a passion for creative excellence and an extensive background in multi-platform content production. Over her storied career, she has had the pleasure of traveling the world, collaborating with great talent and creating award winning work for companies including Facebook, Google, YouTube, Honda and Playstation. She is a proud maker of things, and loves to help bring great ideas to life in whatever shape or size they may come in. When she’s not working or parenting, she can be found snowboarding, baking sourdough, or tending to her many plants.

Damian Kulash, Jr. is an artist, musician, filmmaker, and the frontman for the polymath rock group OK Go. He’s directed the band’s long string of boundary-pushing music videos, racking up more than 300 million views online. They’ve danced in zero gravity and on treadmills, they’ve built a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine to run in sync with a song, and they’ve choreographed hundreds of explosions filmed in just a few seconds.

Damian has received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for Visual Art, a Grammy, three MTV VMA’s, twenty-one Cannes Lions, three Webby Awards, and has had his work presented at The Guggenheim, MoCA, LACMA, The Hirschhorn, The Hammer Museum, and Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.

Damian graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1998. He’s written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, and testified before the US Congress in support of Net Neutrality. He serenaded Barack Obama at his 50th birthday party, appeared on the Simpsons, and Animal from The Muppets once played the drums in his garage. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Chloe Coover, former community manager at FREE THE WORK, championed the representation of women, trans, non-binary, and intersex creatives in media. She played a pivotal role in discovering and onboarding diverse talent to the FTW network, fostering lasting relationships within its creative community. Chloe also hosted The Future, Through Our Eyes, a podcast mini-series spotlighting trans, non-binary, and intersex voices shaping the next wave of media. Her work continues to amplify underrepresented creators, driving inclusivity and equity in the industry while redefining the landscape of creative storytelling for the future.

Jo is a multi-award winning creative leader with a vision to create work that has real impact in the real world. She spent over 20 years of her career in London and then moved to LA in 2023. She’s regularly invited to join and chair international creative award juries such as Cannes Lions and to speak at events and conferences both inside and outside of the industry.

On the periphery of advertising, she’s proactively curated two large, thought-provoking exhibitions: There’s a Good Girl and There’s a Good Immigrant. Each gaining wide-reaching PR coverage.

She’s also the founder and host of the popular, non-profit event, Good Girls Eat Dinner, since 2015. The mission is simple: to serve up visible, inspiring, female role-models across the creative industries and beyond. Feedback suggests it’s the most interesting dinner party you’ll ever go to. Good Girls Eat Dinner is now available in take-out form, AKA a podcast!

Brian creates multi-screen experiences that forge emotional connections with audiences. His production roots run deep, with experience at TV stations and production companies before transitioning to the ad agency production side. Along the way, his work has earned numerous accolades, including multiple Cannes Lions Grand Prix awards, Emmy nominations, and, most recently, an Emmy Award for Apple's holiday film Fuzzy Feelings. He has served on the Board of Governors for the Television Academy for over five years and was named Agency Producer of the Year by Ad Age in 2020. When not solving production challenges, he can be found on the field coaching youth rugby.

Jess Coulter is a comedic storyteller who joined O Positive in 2018 and one year later was named to Adweek’s Creative 100 as 1 of 11 commercial directors elevating the craft of storytelling. Her commercials standout for their funny stories and visual style, with recent highlights including M&Ms “Almost Champions Ring of Comfort”, a 2024 Super Bowl spot included among the game’s best commercials by CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports and Vogue, and a Keurig campaign starring Anna Kendrick that was featured in tastemakers such as Trendhunter and Pop Sugar.

Jess also directed the high-profile “First Visitors” spot for Snickers, highlighting the perils of coming out of quarantine and named the funniest ad of quarantine by AdAge. She directed AT&T’s “A Lot in Common, ” ft. Demi Moore and Mila Kunis, which debuted during the 2022 Super Bowl and was so buzzworthy it became an answer on the iconic quiz show “Jeopardy!”

Jess directed her first short film Skincare in 2021, the horror comedy thriller which she wrote and directed, with cinematography by Academy Award winning DP Robert Yeoman. It premiered on Hulu’s Bite Size Halloween Short Film Series. Her next short, satiric comedy Shadow Woman, enjoyed a successful film festival run. Jess was previously an award-winning creative director at BBDO NY, and has a background in improv and sketch writing/acting/directing with NYC’s Upright Citizens Brigade and The Pit, along with screenwriting and still photography. Her work has been recognized with Cannes Lions, One Show Pencils, CLIOS, Effies and AICP honors. At different points in her career, Jess has been a hip-hop dancer, food writer, burlesque world champion, mock fashion Instagrammer, Krav Maga fighter, jingle singer and NFL
cheerleader.

I grew up in South Africa. Moved to Miami when I was 12. Lost my accent by the time I was 15. Biggest regret of my life. Realized people actually got paid to write ads when I won a baby grand piano for a radio spot I submitted to a contest put on by a piano store. I don't play piano. Graduated high school. Went to the University of Florida from 2001-2005. Got a B.S. in Advertising and a B.A. in English. Decided to go to portfolio school. Attended Miami Ad School from 2005 - 2007 and got to intern and work in Hamburg, London and Boulder. Moved to New York. Started as a Junior Copywriter at Strawberryfrog NY. Worked there from 2007-2011. Took improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade from 2007-2009. Got hit by a tidal wave of gross, gray slush in February by the M14 Bus while I was carrying my groceries 4 avenue blocks. Realized I needed to get the fuck out of NYC (still love it though). Moved to LA. Got a job as a Senior Writer at Deutsch LA. Worked there from 2011-2013. Left in 2013 to work as a Lead Writer at 72andSunny. Got promoted to Creative Director in 2015. Had a kid. Big fan. Took 6 months of cooking classes at the New School of Cooking in 2017. The trick to make sure your pan sauce never breaks is constant whisking. Went over to TBWA Media Arts Lab in 2018. Had another kid. Also a big fan. Currently working on pitching a cartoon, making custom ice-cream flavors for my friends and trying not to irreversibly scar my children.

Amy Charlotte Kean is a bestselling author, poet, creative sociologist, public speaker, diversity activist, futurist, cult leader, experimenter and rampant people pleaser. Hey, it works.

She’s also founder of Six Things Impossible, a creativity and culture company. If you need fresh ideas, creative experimentation, brand prominence and a recharged company culture that lets imaginations flourish… Six Things Impossible is the only place you should go. I’m not even joking.

Monica Chun is an established industry leader specializing in business transformation and leveraging entertainment and culture to create compelling omni-channel, consumer marketing and social engagement initiatives. She has extensive experience in data-driven, product marketing and cross-functional leadership for a wide range of brands in multiple categories including: consumer electronics, gaming, beverage, fashion/apparel, health/wellness, auto, telecomms, tech, CBD/cannabis, Web3/Metaverse and beauty.

My dad named me “Biz”. No, it is not short for “business”. Yes, that was a missed opportunity.

I was born post-Cobain and pre-Google in a lovely college town called Madison, Wisconsin. The winters there, along with ones spent working in Boulder, Chicago and London earned me the grace of now living in Los Angeles.

I have no attachment to the title, frameworks or processes of being a “strategist”. My only devotion is toward evolution, or simply put, movement in the right direction. Evolution of all kinds (product, brand, comms, internal) requires the heart of hard conversations, the courage of big thinking and the discipline of clarity. Do that, and the frameworks write themselves. Don’t, and the frameworks make for dust-worthy decorations.

This is why after nearly a decade of building award-winning and breakthrough brands within advertising agencies, I now find myself helping redefine strategy’s role within business and brand at the world’s most enthusiastic strategy company, SIGNIFICANT.

Since breaking ground as JOJX’s first female partner in 2024, she’s committed to championing diversity – starting with signing director Madeline Clayton to amplify female talent on the roster. A relentless creative force, she’s built a reputation for propelling emerging directors into the US market, helping them win Cannes Lions award-winning work, and redefining what it means to lead in advertising.

Brett is the SVP, Managing Director, Head of Production at The Martin Agency, where he oversees everything Martin produces from content and activations to bespoke products, digital and entertainment. He’s been with Martin 18 years and has worked on multiple high-profile campaigns, including Super Bowl work and winning a Cannes TV/Cinema Grand Prix Lion. He’s an expert on creating production solutions tailored to specific brand needs and his clients have included Axe, GEICO, Oreo, Ritz, Xfinity/Comcast, TIAA, Sling, Kraft, Walmart, Experian, and Mentos to name just a few. He’s a champion of producers and has made it a mission to highlight their key role in the creative process.

Jason Kreher has spent his career creating impactful, award-winning work for some of the greatest brands in the world. After 15 years at Wieden+Kennedy and a two-year stint as CCO of Accenture Song, Kreher recently joined Ryan Reynolds' growing empire at Maximum Effort, where he oversees creative across their marketing, production, and investment arms.

Kreher’s industry accolades include an Emmy, multiple Grand Prix at Cannes and Ciclope, and the #1 Super Bowl spot of 2022. In 2018, Ad Age named him A-List Creative Director of the Year; the following year, he served as a judge at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival.

In addition to his work in advertising, Kreher debuted his short film (with director Todd Selby) at the independent Slamdance Film Festival in Utah. In 2015, he published his first book with Simon & Schuster—a collection of cruel Popsicle stick jokes titled SchadenFreezers—and created an online comedy series with stand-up comedian Maria Bamford. Kreher's long-running creative collaboration with indie rock band Portugal the Man boasts more than 350mm YouTube views and has earned him literally dozens of dollars in songwriting residuals.

Kreher lives in Portland, Oregon, with his handsome husband and two strapping sons