Xavier Teo_v1

Jackson is VP, GM of DTC at Clorox, a heavily-abbreviated way of saying he's leading the $6B company's direct-to-consumer efforts. We talked about what you learn from crisis, how new CPG products come to life, and how being social chair in his fraternity and promoting the Sidekick for T-Mobile led him to where is he today. We also learned that long before he was head of strategy at CNX, Brendon Volpe was a pretty good basketball player.

We're joined by Aisha Hakim, Senior Art Director at Venables Bell & Partners and founder of Fellow App (https://thefellowapp.com/). We talk about mentorship, landing your first job in advertising, and who she wants to be her advertising best friend.

This episode features Julia Parris (analogisheavy.com) & Able Parris (https://wtf.studio/). The shortest list would be of the things they are NOT creating. They're creative directors, designers, a photographer (Julia), a musician (Able), and true lovebirds. We talked about working independently, creating space to work, and the art of giving feedback. They also become our first guests to answer the final five, our recurring, rapid-response round of questions.

This episode features Love Malone (CEO/ founder) and Bennett Bennett (marketing lead) at creative industry recruiting startup The Gradient. We talked about why “diversity” is a dirty word, how agencies can do better at bringing in different viewpoints, and taking a leap to start a business that brings your vision to life.

This episode features Dr. John Baldwin, professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara, where alongside “Socialization, Self-Actualization, and Creativity,” he teaches the popular “Human Sexuality” course with his wife, Dr. Janice Baldwin, also a professor of sociology. We talked about the social, evolutionary, and biological foundations of creativity, teaching taboo topics, and what we can all do to be better collaborators. NOTE: For about the last 1/3 of the episode we had some audio issues. Our apologies, and hope you enjoy nonetheless.

In our first-ever episode, we talk to Xavier Teo, CNX’s executive creative director. We talked about how Michael Jordan got Xavier into advertising, what an idea is, and why he hates the idea of being an expert.

Welcome to Version Final, a podcast about where ideas come from. Here's a quick introduction to how this started and what we're hoping to explore.