Projects end. Momentum needs a leader.

Strategy and vision only matter once they’re carried out. As your fractional Chief Creative Officer, I join your leadership team and stay with the work until real change takes hold.

I’m Jason Sherwood, and I’ve spent thirty years leading creative for Nike, Intel, and founders building from zero.

HOW I WORK

THE PROBLEM

Your brand is describing the company you were four years ago.

05

common situations
when companies call me.

01

You’ve grown past your existing brand.

The company is better than it was four years ago. Better product, better people, better customers. The website, the deck, and the packaging are all still arguing for the old version, and every new prospect meets that version first.

02

Buyers can’t tell you apart, and price keeps winning.

You lose deals to companies you know you’re better than. Sales says the number was too high. It usually isn’t the number. When a buyer can’t articulate why you’re different, price is the only thing left to compare. More marketing won’t fix it. It just spreads the same message further.

03

Creative still routes through you, and you don’t have the hours.

You’re the last approval on the site, the deck, the packaging, and the trade booth. Not because you want to be. Because there’s nobody else who can make the call and make it stick, so every one of those decisions waits for a gap in your week.

04

You’re launching, and it has to be right the first time.

A new product, a new market, a rebrand, a date with your name on it. It’s six months out and nobody senior owns how it looks.

05

You lost your marketing leader, and the role was really two jobs.

Half of it was pipeline. The other half was what the brand says and how it looks while saying it. Replacing both in one hire takes months, and most companies compromise on the half that’s harder to measure. I take that half, and I’ll tell you honestly what to do about the other one.

why me

Strategy and craft in one person.

graphic portrait of Jason Sherwood

Jason Sherwood
Principal · Phase23
Co-founder & CCO · Choffy
Creative Director · Opus Creative, Akona
Nike Brand Design · Jordan Brand

Working inside Nike Brand Design on Jordan and Nike Basketball doesn’t allow for preciousness. Only performance.

At agencies, I was creative director on Intel, Microsoft, Autodesk, and Tektronix, and I’ve run my own practice for nearly twenty years since. Both taught me to find the question nobody else is asking.

And six years owning a brand instead of advising on one. As co-founder and chief creative officer of a consumer products company, I know the pressure of a creative decision with my own money behind it.

So I understand how strategy, the work, marketing, and operations connect, because I was responsible for all four at once. I can also tell you what an idea costs to execute before anyone starts building it.

I helped Key Nutrients, a self-funded startup, grow from zero to $20 million before its acquisition by Branded Group.

I’ve done every job below mine on the org chart, so I know when to stop directing and give the work to whoever will do it best.

Phase23 is my studio. When you hire it, you get me.

SEE THE WORK

”Jason is, hands down, one of the best creative people I have ever worked with. The passion and ability he brings to everything he touches is second to none, and is a leader in thought and example. He understands when to ask the right questions, and when to take what's there and make it better, and in his care, it was always for the better.

David Lowe-Rogstad

HOW I WORK

Creative leadership,
on your schedule.

From $15,000 / month

Three-month minimum · No severance, no equity, no benefits, no six-month search.

The Engagement

The scope depends on your needs.

What gets made depends on what the business needs: positioning, identity and standards, campaigns, launch systems, digital, internal communication. There is very little in this discipline I don’t do or direct. Scope and cadence set the cost.

Three months minimum.
Six is better.

Month one I’m learning your business, your buyers, and where the work breaks. Month two I start making calls. Month three you see whether anything changed.

Anything shorter is a project with a different name on it. I’d rather tell you that now than take the money and hand you a deck. After the minimum we go month to month. If the work grows, the number moves with it, and you will hear about it before it happens.

THE TERMS

I report to you.

I take a standing seat in your leadership meeting, on a schedule set to what the work needs. Not under your VP of Marketing, and not through a committee. A creative leader who routes every decision through the person whose work he’s changing can’t change anything. If that structure isn’t available, I’ll say so on the first call and save us both a quarter.

WHERE I WORK

Wherever the work is.

Remote, hybrid, or onsite, set to what your company actually needs. I’ve run this from Ridgefield, Washington for clients in Europe and South America, and location has never been the thing that decided whether it worked.

WHAT I OWN

How your brand shows up.

he positioning, the message, and the standard of what goes out. That includes work your team makes and work your vendors make. Nothing ships without meeting it.

WHAT I DON’T OWN

Your pipeline number.

At a couple of days a week I don’t control your budget, your channels, or the people running them, and I won’t take accountability for a number I can’t move alone. If demand generation is the real problem, you need a growth leader, and I’ll say so in month one.

What people ask
on the first call.

How is this different from hiring a consultant?
A consultant recommends. I decide. I sit in your leadership meeting, I have review authority over what ships, and I answer for the result. If you want a report, hire a consultant.
Why not just hire someone full time?
If you have five days a week of work for a creative executive, do that. Most companies between sixty and three hundred people don't, and they end up hiring at a level they can afford instead of the level they need. This is the level you need, at the fraction you can use, starting in two weeks instead of six months.
What if things aren't working?
After the three month minimum, thirty days' notice, no penalty. Inside the minimum, if I'm the wrong fit I'll say so first and we'll end it. I'd rather lose two months of revenue than be referred as the guy who stayed too long.
We were going to do a rebrand. Isn't that the same thing?
If the position is right and only the expression is dated, then yes, and that's a project. I do those, and I would rather build you a great one than sell you a retainer you don't need. But if the argument itself has stopped working, a rebrand gives you a new identity sitting on an old position, and six weeks later you are where you started.
How many companies do you work with at once?
Two. Three at the absolute most, and only if one is winding down. Fractional stops working when the person is spread as thin as the agency you were trying to replace.
Do you work with competing companies?
Never two companies in the same category at the same time. It's written into the agreement, not left to judgment.
What happens to my agency relationships?
Usually they improve. Most agency underperformance traces back to a weak brief and a client with no single decision maker. I fix both. If a vendor genuinely isn't good enough, I'll tell you and help you replace them.
Can we start with something smaller?
Yes. The Market Separation Audit is two weeks and $7,500, and most longer term engagements start there. It tells you what kind of creative leadership you need. If we do go on to have a larger engagement, you will get a credit from the Audit toward our full engagement.

Not an ongoing engagement?
Then a project.

Brand strategy and identity, packaging, campaigns, launch systems, digital. Same person, defined scope, defined end. Most companies that aren’t a fit for ongoing leadership are a good fit here.

See Project Engagements

If you grow through independent sellers or distributors

Compensation plans, field communications, interactive training, campaigns for direct selling companies. Different needs, specific solutions.

See Direct Selling Projects

Next Step

Two weeks from
now you could know.

The Market Separation Audit is $7,500 and takes two weeks. You find out where your positioning stands with the people you are trying to win, and what it would take to change it.

If a conversation first would help, that is free and I will tell you honestly whether the audit is worth your money.

Book the Audit
Book a Call

If your positioning is already strong,
the audit says so. Let’s get tactical.