David Linder
Producer // Creator // Problem Solver
Friend to people and pixels
I’m a digital jack of all trades, and a master at quite a few. Whether managing a team, or rolling up my sleeves and doing it myself, I’m always there to make sure things are done, and done right. I’ve worked with the biggest tech companies, and small one-man shops. I have a decade of experience in managing creative projects, establishing systems, and connecting people. I think my experience speaks for itself, but if you’re asking yourself if I know how to ____, the answer is probably yes, and if it isn’t, I’ll quickly figure it out.
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Experience
Upwork
The World’s Work Marketplace
Creative Project Manager
November 2022 - Present
Managed timelines, deliverables, and teams producing integrated campaigns and marketing content including social posts, email campaigns, paid acquisition, product launches, media production, research reports, & live events.
Served as the lynch pin between the creative team — including designers, copywriters, editors, animators, art directors and creative directors — and key project stakeholders across the marketing division.
Owned and drove the creative project lifecycle including scoping/planning, scheduling, resourcing, requirements gathering, design reviews, and delivery.
Efficiently communicated with team to ensure project goals and expectations are clear and realistic.
Participated in and facilitated design reviews and project reflections.
Meet multiple deadlines, prioritized work, and kept projects moving forward.
Scheduled, managed, and addressed cross-functional feedback and stakeholder approvals with a completely remote and distributed team across the globe.
Predicted and/or identified roadblocks and obstacles, and proactively established meetings or integration points between teams to address and resolve them.
Built, shared and trained exhaustive documentation for new processes, as well as current ones in need of better adoption, ensuring smoother and more effective team collaboration. Facilitated, documented, and disseminated decisions to key stakeholders
Prioritized competing needs with good reasoning and creative solutions
Projects & Campaigns
Trade Show Design & Promotion
Left Field Labs
a digital experience agency in Los Angeles, CA
Digital Producer
February 2021 - September 2022
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Produced a variety of short and long term projects with budgets ranging from $250k to $800k, for clients including Google (including the 2021 Diversity Report and Google for Games Insight Report) Data Robot, Verizon, The Schultz Family Foundation, and Fermata Energy. These cross disciplinary projects included full website builds, presentation deck design, company branding, go-to-market strategy, product design, and the design, fabrication, and instGoogle for Games Insight Reportallation of large scale convention booth activations.
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Crafted schedules, created and monitored budgets and a margins, and led multi-disciplinary teams of 15-20 people, including UX designers, creative strategists, copywriters, art directors and digital designers, motion & 3D designers, tech leads, developers, and QA analysts from both a strategic high level, as well as day-to-day tasks. This included scheduling and leading all internal reviews and client presentations, as well as ensuring teams were properly resourced, and vendors paid. As a producer, I also contributed to our sales and pitch process, ensuring that estimates and contracts were properly constructed and overseeing a smooth handoff to the project team.
In addition to project work, I lead an initiative to research, test, and implement new project management processes and tools, culminating in a company wide roll-out of Asana for the planning, management, and reporting of both active projects as well as the sales pipeline.
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Leveraged a variety of project management best practices — a mix of waterfall and agile methods — to guide projects through an effective and efficient path to launch. This included a variety of internal reviews and approvals, as well as client presentations and + 1 reviews. Additionally, each project followed a strict cadence of reporting (financial and otherwise) and reflection (including bi-weekly retrospective workshops) to enable course correction as needed.
From a tooling perspective, I utilized an interconnected system of Google Drive, Slack, and Asana to ensure everyone on the team was informed and in sync in our communication, documentation, and task management, without the need for lengthy email chains or unnecessary meetings.
Recommendations
Extremely detail-oriented doesn’t even begin to describe David. He was always striving to find efficiencies in our shared projects, it was a delight to collaborate with him. His client engagement skills are second to none.
Hai T.
Design Director
David impressed me with his ability to coalesce disparate project inputs into a masterful flow of meaningful collaborations across disciplines. He has a keen sense of craft and razor-sharp attunement to the project team; raising the bar for all of us in a positive and supportive manner. He is a skilled leader in producing any kind of project.
Eve T.
User Experience Lead
He ensured that our projects remained well-managed, with budgets in check and clients happy. I've rarely come across someone able to so successfully balance working impressively hard while emphasizing a healthy work-life balance. I felt empowered to do my best work as a designer and know that things were going to be under control if David was involved in the project. I'm lucky to have worked with him.
Katie L.
Designer
David is an organized, hard working, intelligent and first-class producer. You'd be hard pressed to find another producer that can lead your team to the finish line, and do-so in a detail-oriented, team-focused and organized fashion.
Clyron Q.
Quality Assurance Manager
David brought a consistent degree of clarity to each project I worked on, proactively involving technical voices to make sure we could support the project's creative vision. He was exemplary at detecting potential issues before they occurred, making sure we found the answers before we needed them.
Conor B.
Front End Developer
Smilebooth
a photo & video agency for experiential events
Senior Producer & Project Manager
October 2015 - August 2020
Managed a full time staff of 9 production managers and 30+ technicians across 9 US offices, and oversaw the production of upwards of 6000 photo and video activations ranging from wedding photo booths to custom multi-day installations at music festivals and conventions.
Personally coordinated and produced over 3000 activations in the Western US with a total revenue of $12.9M, including an average of 5 projects/yr of $20k or above.
Recruited, trained, and managed a local team of on-site event technicians and ensured their proficiency in technical, troubleshooting, and client management skills, leading to an average client satisfaction rating of over 90%.
Leveraged internal technologies and 3rd party software to craft custom experiences for brands including CocaCola, American Airlines, Google, Oculus, Twitter, Target, and the NBA.
Assisted sales team with designing experiences that met unique client needs and requests, while also pushing our development team to innovate according to activation requirements.
Designed and wire-framed several new app builds and directed their creation by our development team.
Created and implemented integrated systems built on Slack, Salesforce, and Dropbox to ensure seamless collaboration, troubleshooting, and oversight amongst managers, designers, technicians and ownership.
Project Highlights
Oath | 2016, International $1.2M
Served as the key liaison between Smilebooth and First Agency in creating a program in which our team traveled to 29 cities in Europe and Asia to capture new profile photos for 7500 employees of the rebranded Oath (Yahoo/ AOL/ Verizon). Hired and trained 65 staff (both local and US-based) to follow technical, creative, and logistical guidelines to ensure a consistent output and experience for the 37,500 images delivered. Coordinated scheduling (78 production days) and travel to efficiently utilize the staff and equipment available and reduce costs.
Google Pixel | 2018, Indio, CA, $74k
Oversaw the development of two mobile apps to be deployed for Coachella festival goers to capture branded selfies both at and on the famous ferris wheel, showcasing the low light abilities of the Pixel 2 XL. Trained and managed a team of 6 to guide and troubleshoot the experience, and integrated with MKG’s brand ambassador team to assist in capturing close to 50,000 photos across two weekends.
Slack | 2019, San Francisco, CA $72k
Worked directly with Slack’s creative team to design a fully custom 8’ tall mirrored photo booth install for the new public event and information space in San Francisco. Served as the project manager for Smilebooth’s internal design and development teams as well as the external fabricators. Coordinated delivery and install with contractors on-site.
Google Assistant | 2020, Las Vegas, NV $72k
Leveraged Smilebooth’s internal technologies and equipment to build a custom photo integration as part of Google’s enormous activation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Worked with Sparks to design a sleek user experience where high quality DSLR cameras captured burst photos of guests sliding down colorful slides into a ball pit, and then instantly delivered animated GIFs (3900 over 4 days) directly to the guest’s Google Photos accounts.
Oculus | 2017, Los Angeles, CA $35k
Designed and implemented an end-to-end photo creation workflow utilizing studio lighting, automated image processing, and a multi-station wired network backhaul to create campaign quality images for influential event attendees, to match the style of the brand’s campaign. After working with an on-site photographer to capture, review and share their creation, guests were delivered an 11x17 poster print as a take home gift within minutes.
Fotofafa
Post-production studio for wedding & portrait photographers
Director of Operations
2012 - 2015
Workflow & Relationships Manager
2011 - 2012
Managed a team of 10+ photo editors working both in the office and remotely.
Created an advanced email management system, which improved support team email response times and staff sanity.
Hired and trained several customer support assistants to provide both basic support and problem resolution for our clients, ensuring that current issues were resolved and future issues were prevented.
Implemented an online chat system to allow both local and international clients to have immediate access to a support team member.
Designed and implemented an online ordering system, resulting in improved organization and timeliness for both customers and production staff.
Produced and edited a pair of client testimonial videos which, in 7 months, had over 20 hours of play time, an average play rate of 83% and an engagement rate of 71%.
Clients
Adidas
Amazon
American Airlines
Anheuser Busch
AOL
Apple
Asana
AT&T
Atlantic Records
AXE
Bumble
Canon
Capitol Records
Chrysler
CocaCola
Data Robot
Dell
Dollar Shave Club
Dropbox
The Daytime Emmy's
Everlane
FX
Fermata Energy
Fox
Funny or Die
Gatorade
Gatorade
Goop
Hasbro
HBO
Hendrick's
Hollister
Honey
Hyatt
J Crew
Los Angeles Football Club
Lego
Lionsgate
Mattel
MTV
Netflix
New Balance
Nickelodeon
Oath
Oculus
Pandora
Propel
Ralph Lauren
Red Bull
Puma
Salesforce
The Schultz Family Foundation
Sketchers
SKYY
Slack
SKYY
Sony Electronics
Sony Pictures
Spotify
Target
Telemundo Deportes
Toms
Toyota
UGG
Universal Pictures
Upwork
Urban Outfitters
Viacom
Verizon
Virgin Orbit
Warner Music
Warner Brothers
Yahoo!
Adidas Amazon American Airlines Anheuser Busch AOL Apple Asana AT&T Atlantic Records AXE Bumble Canon Capitol Records Chrysler CocaCola Data Robot Dell Dollar Shave Club Dropbox The Daytime Emmy's Everlane FX Facebook Fermata Energy Fox Funny or Die Gatorade Gatorade Google Goop Hasbro HBO Hendrick's Hollister Honey Hyatt J Crew Los Angeles Football Club Lego LinkedIn Lionsgate Mattel MTV Netflix New Balance Nickelodeon Oath Oculus Pandora Propel Pinterest Ralph Lauren Red Bull Puma Salesforce The Schultz Family Foundation Sketchers SKYY Slack SKYY Sony Electronics Sony Pictures Spotify Target Telemundo Deportes Toms Toyota Twitter UGG Universal Pictures Upwork Urban Outfitters Viacom Verizon Virgin Orbit Warner Music Warner Brothers Yahoo!
Education
Azusa Pacific University | Azusa, CA | 2006-2010
B.S. in Marketing, Minor in Sociology
Cum Laude, Dean’s List, President of Students in Free Enterprise
Tools
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Slack, Asana, Dropbox, Trello, Basecamp, Monday, Miro, FigJam
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Google Docs, Sheets, & Slides, Microsoft Office, Harvest, Forecast, Parallax
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Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Canva
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Squarespace, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Zapier
Skills
Client communication & management
Creative concepting
Photo & video production and editing.
Team & project management
Timeline planning & coordination
Strategic problem solving
Budgeting and margin management
Cross-discipline collaboration
Creating and implementing systems and processes
Decks and presentations
Personal
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Well, a job. Ideally full time, but long term contract roles will also be considered. I’m open to on-site, but remote opportunities will be prioritized.
My project management experience spans the gamut, but I’m primarily interested in building interesting things with teams of talented people. Yes, it’s broad, but as they say, variety is the spice of live, and I don’t want to limit myself.
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I’m live in Los Angeles, but am available for remote roles nationwide. Relocation is always an option, but I’m not interested in having my California bear tattoo removed. Hope that’s not a dealbreaker.
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You’re really asking that now? After reading everything on this page? OK, fine. I think it boils down to my unique combination of organization, collaboration and management skills, technological understand, ability to adapt to unique circumstances, needs, or tools, and lastly — I’m pretty fun to be around.
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When not working, I’m often at home with my partner Heather, our dog Cowboy and cat George. We’re fans of exploring — the neighborhoods, restaurants, and activities of Los Angeles, but also the depths of Netflix, HBO, and Apple TV. I’m a big fan of sports, primarily baseball (Padres), golf, and soccer (LAFC), though I’ll never turn down an opportunity to attend any sporting competition. I love cooking and baking, mostly because the output is delicious, but also because I love sharing with friends.
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Sure, and by similar logic, cereal is a soup. But I’ve learned it’s best to keep these thoughts to yourself, especially in social settings.