Things to know about me, represented through 3rd person…

Jess has been rumored to curse ..a lot, is a certified yoga instructor, turns into a puddle of goo around his new born daughter.

Fact: There are bad jokes and there are dad jokes, but there is no such thing as a bad dad joke.

In all seriousness, Jess recognizes that he is blessed to be able to work and surround himself with people much more talented than himself, and loves working with likeminded people to help come up with creative solutions and strategies to elevate and grow their brands.

Through his 20 year professional career marketing and promoting brands, Jess has worked with the likes of Live Nation, Lyft, Jars Cannabis, and Ford to name a few. 

Mehdi Arshed is a marketing whiz and community builder based in Detroit.

He’s led global teams at Google/Waze, boosting brand engagement and reputation. From growing social media followings at Yelp to running digital campaigns for small businsses, he’s got a knack for making brands shine.

When he’s not crunching numbers or crafting strategies, he’s likely organizing dance events or teaching. Basically, if it involves creativity, community, and a dash of data, Mehdi’s your guy.

Mar Manzanares is a photographer and producer from Mexico City who currently resides in Detroit, Michigan. Mar loves fashion, food, and snow sports.

Mar has produced, styled, and shot for notable companies such as Live Nation, Walmart, MooseJaw, Bon Bon Bon, Paxahau, Jars Cannabis, and More. 

Alex Zurowski is a man of many talents and will speak on technical knowledge that the normal person does not understand, aka he geeks out on analytics, coding, and large scale custom design fabrications. He’s just built different, that’s what makes Alex such an intangible asset to our MC team. 

Alex has served as Lead Digital Marketing Strategist and analyst for Social Sound System for over 10 years, and also ran his own custom fabrication shop producing large and small scale custom fabrications and set designs for companies like Hulu, Disney, and Fox. 

Taking pride in his community, and enjoys working on culturally relevant, impactful lifestyle projects. James is a graphic, digital designer by trade who’s work has been featured in select galleries in NY and Detroit, including his featured exhibit at the DIA.

James founded his own lifestyle clothing brand, Eight One Zero in 2018, a nod to his hometown of Flint, MI. He has also served as creative director for Jars Cannabis, Detroit vs. Everybody, and is currently associate creative director at unicultural agency UWG. 

Jason has been creating cutting edge, compelling video content -writing, producing, directing, and editing video in Metro Detroit for over two decades, and is the founder and executive director of Collective Age Media, a boutique agency specializing in video marketing.

Jason has written and directed hundreds of TV commercials, mini-marketing videos and short-form documentaries for countless businesses in Metro Detroit including Quality Metalcraft (Highlighting Stain-less Steel Fabrication for the Motor City Casino), Paxahau (3 Part Documentary on the History of The Detroit Electronic Music Festival), and Camilo Pardo (lead designer of the 2005 Ford GT).

Jason has also worked with the likes of FitTeam, American Cancer Society, Yonuts!, and Hanson’s Windows to drop a few more names to Jason’s impressive portfolio.  

Spending a 20 year career with big Detroit Ad agencies, James struck out on his own in 2009 to focus on providing digital marketing services aligned with Google’s advertising products. A Google Partner Agency since 2010, James has worked on a large variety of accounts from retail to healthcare to service industries for both local and national firms including General Motors, US Navy, PNC Bank, and Farmers Insurance.

James’ primary focus is Search Keyword Advertising on Google and Bing, and also ensuring Client websites are properly measured using Google Analytics, Tag Manager and now GA4. He also manages Display and YouTube ads as well as LinkedIn’s advertising products on behalf of his B2B clients.

A rabid volunteer, James is an elected Trustee of his local library as well as a Meals on Wheels delivery driver for seniors in his community. He eagerly awaits the coming of Spring each year so that he may tend his native plants, trees, vegetables, fruits and flowers that he grows on his bit of acreage an hour North of Detroit.