Solving problems & creating value with brand-led strategy.

Hi! I’m Walker. I’m an NYC-based strategist who specializes in unlocking business value through a brand-centric approach.

I love thinking about brands and how we can use them to solve business problems. Though my process starts in the realm of brand strategy, I’ve gone to all sorts of fun and interesting places to create value for businesses. I’ve rebuilt a luxury lifestyle media company from scratch with American Express, given America’s foremost culinary institution a renewed purpose and identity, built an audiozine with General Electric and the New York Times, and much more.

What I Do

  • I can help you identify your brand purpose, understand how to effectively and emotionally articulate it, and determine all the ways it should impact your business.

  • I can build a business plan with a strategically sound value proposition for your target audience(s).

  • I can ingest multiple inputs — brand guidelines, business goals, audience insights, etc. — and output a concise creative brief that is catered to your creative team.

  • I can develop a vision for your product, translate that vision into an actionable roadmap, and then work with developers and designers to see it through.

  • I can help you navigate ever-shifting waters of media and culture in order to implement your creative messaging on the most effective channels and in the most effective ways possible.

  • I can design and execute a content strategy that delivers your most important messages in a way that is compelling to your target audience.

Don’t take my word for it…

  • "Walker is a strategic unicorn. I've seen him develop brands, launch brands, buy media for brands, and operate brands. He's one of the most ambidextrous thinkers and doers I've been around in my career. Best of all, he's a joy to work with. He plays hard, he plays nice, and he lifts people up."

    Corbin Brown ∙ Chief Transformation Officer, Giant Spoon

  • "Walker brings a fresh, innovative perspective to everything he touches. He is able to execute the most intricate strategies with precision and speed, consistently yielding impressive results."

    Angelica Latorre ∙ Senior Product Manager, American Express

  • "Walker will take the biggest knot of a project and unfurl it, methodically and empathetically, into a clear and compelling thread of thought."

    Janina Volpe ∙ Co-Founder, Vacation

Some Folks I’ve Worked For

Read more about select work below

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Read more about select work below 👀

01

Departures

Client: American Express

The Problem: In 2020, Departures was a media business stuck in the early aughts. The brand was outdated, the business plan was broken, the website was an afterthought, and the magazine was perceived to be junk mail by many of the American Express card members who received it.

The Solution: Working on a three-person strategy team, we pitched a complete overhaul of the business, brand, and product to American Express, who published Departures for their most valued card members. Our proposal included:

  • Reorg the Business: Diversify revenue streams beyond print ads and embrace revenue streams of a modern digital-first publisher

  • Revamp the Brand: Provide a new perspective on luxury that would engage modern consumers

  • Rebuild the Product: Build new website optimized for member engagement that would be a centerpiece of the brand

Value Created:

  • A brand and editorial product that advertisers wanted to be associated with: I helped build a new identity for the brand that reconciled the brand’s rich history with the desires of modern luxury consumers, and from that new identity, I crafted an editorial approach that served as a north star for a team of editors and writers.

  • A product that American Express card members enjoyed engaging with: I led our Product, Technology, & Analytics teams — a team of developers, designers, and analysts charged that managed our digital experience — as we released dozens of new features that hit KPIs, including an 800% increase in email capture and a 100% increase in page views per visit and time on site.

02

YETI

The Problem: In 2018, YETI was ascendant. Beloved by die-hard fishermen, backyard bar-be-cuers, tumbler-toting teens and everyone in between, the brand’s appeal crossed divides other brands couldn’t. However, as they began to dip their toe in the waters of mass marketing, YETI ran into a problem: they couldn’t fully explain what gave their brand such broad appeal and they didn’t know how to mass market it.

The Solution: Working on a small strategy team, I helped YETI identify what makes their brand so universally resonant and then apply this knowledge across their marketing operation.

Value Created:

  • A north star for the brand: I helped define what made YETI so appealing to consumers, which gave the brand an identity to constantly aspire to and use as a guide for any and all marketing comms, from TV ads to social posts.

  • A GTM strategy for the new line of products: By blending insights pulled from the brand identity/north star, consumer analytics, and product specifications, I built a GTM roadmap that told them when to launch new products, how to talk about them, and who to target with each one.

03

The James Beard Fdn.

The Problem: In 2017, the restaurant industry was being rocked by the MeToo movement and the James Beard Foundation (JBF), a non-profit culinary institution, was at a turning point. The organization had long been a devoted promoter of fine dining in the United States, but it had often turned a blind eye to allegations of bad behavior coming out of some of America’s kitchens. Internally, they had the will to change, but they needed a vision to rally around.

The Solution: I was on the three-person strategy team that provided them that vision. We dug deep into their historical archives, interviewed stakeholders within and beyond the organization, and looked at the broad non-profit landscape to identify organizations that had traveled similar paths to the one JBF aspired to. We reconceived their purpose — defined concisely as “Good Food for Good” — and delivered a set of guidelines to help them make good on this promise.

Value Created:

  • A vision to rally around: “Good Food for Good” has been the organization’s rallying cry ever since we pitched to them back in 2018. It has guided them through a complete overhaul of their awards selection process, a global pandemic that decimated the restaurant industry, and lucrative partnerships with Google, Capital One, and more.

  • Naming and branding for new dining properties: In the years since coining “Good Food for Good”, JBF came back with several more projects. Most recently, I wrote the creative briefs for the naming and design of their new dining properties in Google’s Pier 57, which we ultimately named The Platform and Good Food to Go.