A one-minute honoree film — one of five I directed for the Choose Creativity Awards — profiling Kristin Lemkau, then Chief Marketing Officer of JPMorgan Chase, honored for Authentic Leadership. As CMO, Lemkau built one of the largest banks in the world into a genuine creative force; the film set out to capture the person behind that reputation. The Awards honor leading creators across the arts, sciences, technology, and education in support of creative-education programs in schools.

The assignment was entirely about trust: put one of the most senior marketers in financial services on camera and, in sixty seconds, draw out something true about how she leads. Work like this is decided before the camera rolls — it depends on earning a principal’s confidence quickly, asking the questions that open someone up, and directing with a hand light enough that the result sounds like the person rather than the production.

It is a compact example of the work I would bring to an institution whose brand is carried, in no small part, by the conviction of the people at the top of it — and of creative made in service of something beyond itself.