Celebrating 1 Year of Awesome: Esther Li Creative Director at Beardwood
One year ago, I walked up to a bench on Spring Street to meet Esther Li. We were outside one of SoHo's iconic, chattering, clattering cafes.
The intro came from Stephanie Primus, who told me: "I really think you should meet Esther."
The restaurant was buzzing and iced coffees were on the table, but I had tunnel vision, and the room disappeared. Esther's clarity and drive had me in awe. Steph was right. She's a force.
One year later, she's changed all of our lives at Beardwood, 100 ways.
She set a new Design Vision and reshaped how we look as an agency, raising the bar in every project, every moment, every detail.
She's a strong partner to Steph, Courtney, and Jason: the leadership team that challenges Ryan and me to drive toward an even more ambitious future for our client partners and the agency.
She's a magnet and mentor for world-class talent, building brand worlds across hospitality, food, personal care, and tech that bring deeper emotion and distinctiveness, including Katie Sadow, another visionary design leader on our team.
Down-to-earth meets sky-high aspiration. It just comes through in the way she connects with people.
Stepping into a Creative Director role to shape the future of how we do design is hard. Doing it with this much impact in one year is harder.
From my tunnel vision of excitement over iced coffee to blowing open our world at Beardwood.
Happy 1 year of AWE, Esther.