SOLVING BRAND CHALLENGES IS IN OUR DNA.

His own journey began early, with a childhood love of drawing and all things design that led him to an MFA in Illustration and Graphic Design from the University of Bridgeport. From there, he became a designer for Musselman Advertising in Allentown, PA, and later, senior art director for Connecticut-based Doug Ely Design Group, where he made a name solving design challenges for Smith Corona, Remy Amerique and Ricoh.

As senior art director for NYC-based EastWest Creative, he expanded both reach and reputation on brands including Post Cereals, Listerine, Lysol and Jell-O. He mastered mediums from print and POS to broadcast and interactive. He won a slew of industry accolades. For inspiration, he drew naked people.

Today, he’s founding partner and design director at Bartley & Dick—goal achieved. Now he’s able to help others—like EPIX/MTV, BBC America, International Delights, and NYC Housing Development Corporation—achieve their goals, with total versatility, strategic insight and brilliant creative.

He’s certainly got the fodder for it. Over the years, Matt has been a jack-of-all-trades extraordinaire — from fishmonger to glassblower, from art museum framer to figure roller skater (the crushed velvet jumpsuit alone is worth a thousand words). What all his experience has in common, though, is an insatiable curiosity about how things work. It’s what prompted him, in 1996, to study industrial design and art history at Pratt Institute. That degree led him to project management and producing for some of the biggest agencies in NYC (think Wunderman Thompson and Tribal DDB), working with clients from healthcare to Havoline Oil, even launching Volvo’s first-ever digital car.

Where he finally found his true calling was in business development. As EVP for a young digital media agency, he grew revenue by 6 million over 3 years, and staff from 8 to 45 people. Having his own ideas about how to build client relationships, however, he ultimately set out on his own, which is how B&D finally found him in June 2023. A long, winding journey to us? Maybe, but as the as The Princess Bride says, “You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.”

Having studied design at the University of California Los Angeles’ School of Arts and Architecture, she started her strategy career at Los Angeles Magazine, helping to launch their first bridal media brand as a visually-driven marketer. After a few years, she relocated to NYC and created strategic partnerships for blue chip brands (e.g., Google, Cisco, LVMH, SAP, JPMorgan Chase) at Good Housekeeping, XO Group (who owns The Knot), The Economist, The Guardian, Flipboard and Forbes among other platforms, exceeding performance KPIs and maintaining a minimum of 75% renewal rates with happy clients.

During the pandemic, Ji Son made a few pivots: first to a multicultural agency, NextDayBetter, where she helped to grow the business 2x from prior year benchmarks, then she built executive relationships across a six-figure target market for a fraud technology SaaS company before she took the leap to join Bartley & Dick.

She continues to distill complex challenges for clients into their foundational first principles. She’s a master at delivering beautifully simple strategic solutions to drive customer engagement and growth for our clients.

Her road to B&D began as many do, with graphic design and marketing. With a BA from The College of New Jersey, she joined e-commerce marketer Seller’s Choice as a design intern — but not for long. In a flash, she advanced to design coordinator, then manager, and finally, senior project manager (after an acquisition by Creatd, Inc.). While still fond of design, she had fallen in love with project management — the process, the strategy, the technology — and it clearly loved her back.

By the end of her tenure there, Sophia was managing up to 50 client campaigns and 15 people at any given time. She also had mastered more digital tools than we can name in the time it takes to read this — finding, learning and teaching them to others. That skill set, delivered with grace and humor, made her irresistible to B&D, and to clients like the Jackie Robinson Foundation, Syracuse University, Ingredion and others. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that she’s super cool: an adventurer, music addict, and parent to Boston Terrier Penny, who is now our head of HR.

Emily pursued communications and advertising (with a sociology minor) at Boston University, earning her B.S. in 2014. That led her to account management at KHJ Brand Activation, where she discovered her superpower: managing relationships and delivering results. (Ask her about clients who start digital ad campaigns full of doubt, only to triple ad spending once they start reaping the rewards.)

And why digital? Well, understanding that the internet is really just a world of virtual relationships — where people behave and are motivated differently — she had found her calling. Maturing her SEO, SEM, and paid media skillset at a series of boutique agencies, she ultimately blazed her own trail (as any good superhero would): consulting on client-centric digital strategies that build and strengthen consumer relationships. At B&D, she’s done it for Juneberry Ridge, Tegria, and the New Jersey Theater Alliance, to name a few — all of which just happen to have built their brand on experiences, not things.