Twenty years of building at the intersection of culture and commerce. Not simply as a marketer who parachutes in, but as someone who has always been inside the room - with the artists, the brands, the communities, and the creative economies that connect them.
There's a version of this bio that lists every brand, every title, every accolade. This isn't that.
I've spent the past twenty years doing work that's hard to put in a box. Culture, creativity, commerce - I use those words, but what I really mean is: I've always cared about whether the work matters. To real people. In real communities. I've never been a spectator of culture. I've always been in the room where it's actually happening.
It started with art. Long before marketing, long before any of this, I was a kid making things. Painting. Printmaking. Spending hours in the process of creation. That part of me never went away. It's still how I see, how I think, how I approach a brief or a blank canvas and yes, I still mean both of those things literally.
Over the years I've helped shape cultural marketing for brands like Cîroc, Don Julio, Martell, Jameson, and now D’USSÉ. At Pernod Ricard I co-built the company's first Culture Marketing division from the ground up. At Diageo, pioneered Master of the Mix, the first spirits brand-owned TV series, which aired on VH1 and Centric. I co-built a Brooklyn craft whiskey distillery called Arcane Distilling. I co-created Home by Martell ATL - an 18-month brand residency that turned a residential penthouse into a living cultural gathering space for Atlanta's creative community. Part Harlem Renaissance salon, part Franco-ATL speakeasy. Nothing quite like it existed before or afterwards.
I'm proud of all of it. And somewhere along the way I also realized that some of the most meaningful work I wanted to do couldn't always live inside someone else's brand.
So I started building my own things.
Craft Brand Theory is my consultancy and creative community - part cultural connector, part independent studio. We help brands show up in culture with honesty and intention, and we produce our own IP through a collective of artists, thinkers, and makers who don't need a brand brief to get to work.
Sound Mind Theory is more personal. It's my exploration of music as healing, and what it means to listen with real intention.
Both came from the same place: a belief that culture is serious, that it deserves to be treated with care, and that the most powerful work happens when creativity and community are genuinely in service of each other.
That's what this space is about. That's what I'm about.
If any of this speaks to you, I'm glad you're here. Welcome.
Karim