Ann leads Creative at Walker Sands, the fastest-growing integrated B2B marketing agency in North America. Her team of designers, animators, editors, copywriters and social media strategists are expert in building 360 campaigns, social media programs and creative content for B2B brands looking to accelerate growth.
Ann’s background is in design, but her leadership experience includes creative direction, cross-functional sales, agency systems and process development, team-building and women’s mentorship. She’s also an MBA candidate, studying Management, Marketing and DE&I at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Her work has earned recognition from The Drum, Adweek, Ad Age, Holmes Report SABRE Awards, In2 SABRE Awards, Hermes Creative Awards, AVA Digital Awards, PRSSA, Content Marketing World, Killer Content Awards and Business Insider. Her insights on creativity have been published in FastCo Design.
Career Highlights
Built the Creative department at Walker Sands and, within 7 years, grew the department’s value to $7.5M+ (25% of total agency revenue).
Built and grew campaigns offering into $2.5M+ agency product line; grew organic social media offering to generate $1.5M+ per year in recurring revenue.
Architected and led agency’s award-winning (and first-ever) multi-million dollar, celebrity-led ad campaign featuring Will Arnett — a milestone for a creative group that was built from the ground up.
Retained 100% of team through “The Great Resignation” in 2021 and 2022; 100% also reported feeling “proud to be a part of the team” in 2022 employee-engagement survey.
Led the rebranding of Walker Sands, including brand positioning, visual and verbal identity design and brand activation across marketing and sales channels
Implemented recurring creative review processes for quality assurance and continued learning, including weekly design critiques and quarterly retrospectives, inspiration hours and training workshops
Supported two agency acquisitions; national footprint now incudes offices in Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and Atlanta.
