Simone Garcia

Collaboration is king! I'm a creative and technical individual with substantial experience in combining the two into a relevant marketing skills set. My background in assisting the growth of small, medium and large scale clients, is quite unique. I have the ability to bring direction and interest to brands, backed by the data to show its viability and success (Conversion, ROI, ROAS).

My professional evolution has been a balance between the creative and the technical. Throughout college I worked in the high end movie and music video environment creating lighting effects as a grip/ electrician. With college completed, I joined Chicago Public Schools and worked with a team to create the infrastructure for next generation learning. While currently ubiquitous, this was a point in time where extensive planning, tracking and training was essential for adoption. After three years, and feeling like it was appropriate to move on, I built an IT startup called Efectiv Solutions. This endeavor supported and implemented infrastructure, along with up to date technologies, for a wide range of businesses in a number of fields. Given their diversity, my high level of adaptability and research capabilities were crucial to support our clients. During this time, as a creative pursuit, I began part-time managing a small sweets shop in downtown Chicago. Aside from implementing product changes and functional improvements, I brought “Canady Le Chocolatier” to the Taste of Chicago. Utilizing myriad creative skills, I designed the booth for our vendor to build. With the purpose of serving gelato at the festival, my challenge was also scaling production to serve 15,000 people over a weeks time. During the two years working there, I learned invaluable retail skills. With my IT business growing, it became necessary to direct focus in that direction. Our offerings grew to provide web development, SEO, market research and data insights for clients. In 2015 we shut down operations as market forces required changes that didn't make sense for us to continue on with. At this point I decided to enter the agency environment with Publicis Group in a collaborative management role. With Microsoft Teams coming online, I worked with directors and offshore groups to build out the tools necessary for the level of collaboration needed as the advertising space evolved. In 2014 I found a desire to reconnect with the creative environment, and began producing large scale art events and projects. By 2016, I had sufficiently settled into my corporate role, that I decided to form a partnership in co-ownership of “Beauty and Brawn Art.” Here is where my business, tech marketing and creative skills coalesced into a comprehensive set of offerings. My partner and I steadily built a creative agency that specialized in projects that others couldn't handle. High-rise murals, difficult rebrands, immersive events, and outstanding collaborations are a sampling of what we grew to offer. With the pandemic behind us and having grown to the limits of what Publicis Groupe and Beauty & Brawn could offer, I have found myself consulting for industry leading cannabis organizations. This has included providing market insights and data analysis, event production, and marketing planning.

My bachelors degree comes from DeVry (grad 2003) in the form of Network Engineering, with a minor in business. Despite obtaining a variety of certifications and trainings throughout the years, an aptitude for learning skills quickly, and utilizing relevant tools for the instances I find more complex, have been the most beneficial to me and my growth.