Jason Brown was built for this moment. Over the last 30 years, the creative and business operations powerhouse has been unknowingly cultivating the exact set of skills and experience to be the perfect fit for the new Global CEO of Pearlfisher, which he was appointed in April.
But Brown’s journey to this new role has been anything but direct. After failing to get into the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo, he studied political science and economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. “I ended up studying political science and economics simply because I grew up in a strict West Indian household,” he said. “Back then, that meant there were three jobs: if you want to build a career anywhere, you’re a lawyer, you’re a doctor, or you’re an accountant. There was never going to be an answer where I was ‘the starving artist.’”
Upon completing his degree, Brown felt listless, adrift, and unfulfilled. “When I finished there, I was like, ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do with this,’” he shared candidly. Brown then learned about graphic design programs and opportunities elsewhere and enrolled at the Ontario College of Art and Design. “I got there, and my mind exploded,” he said. “When I talk about that period of my life, I say they replaced my eyes because I looked at everything differently. I was just like, I can’t believe this world existed! And it helped me make sense of all the things that I had been doing up to that point; the things I was attracted to, and why I thought something was beautiful.”
Tell me your business problem, and I’ll tell you how design can help me solve it.
As much as Brown loved the world of graphic design he had then immersed himself in, he still had nagging questions about it as a viable career path, especially as a Black designer. “I was like one of three Black kids in the entire school,” he said. “Even though I knew I was good at graphic design, representation is such a powerful thing. In my graduating year in my history of graphic design class, this guy walks in to give a lecture, and he’s this African guy with dreadlocks. He gets up on stage and starts talking, and I’m just in awe of this person. I ran up to him after and said, “I don’t care what it takes; I need to work with you; I need to work for you.” Up until the moment I saw him, I still wasn’t sure that there was a path or a career for me. I interned with him that summer, and that was the beginning of it.”
Now in the throes of the early stages of his career, Brown bopped around between agency gigs in LA for a while before finding himself at a small branding firm in Toronto called Tudhope. He worked there for seven years, learning on the job in a sink-or-swim environment and taking on massive projects once Tudhope was bought by the branding consultancy Interbrand. This work included global branding projects for UPS, Thomson Reuters, and the New York Stock Exchange. “There were a lot of critical growth moments there where I was reassured that, yes, you belong here, yes, you belong here, yes, you belong here…”
Brown’s insatiable drive to learn and grow bubbled over at a certain point, forcing him to pursue change once again. “The economics part of my education started pulling me a little bit,” he said. “I loved what I was doing, but I wasn’t sure I had a direct enough impact on my clients’ businesses. So I decided to go innovate. I love communications, but I wanted to go somewhere where I could be part of a team that was actually responsible for the invention of these products and services that resulted in that new revenue for their clients. That’s why I fell in love with Fahrenheit 212.”
Fahrenheit 212, an innovation strategy and design firm, had a distinct methodology perfect for Brown. The business structure, called “Money and Magic,” comprised two distinct entities: Design and Product (aka magic) and Commercial Strategy (aka money). Brown headed the Magic team for four years, composed of branding experts, journalists, industrial designers, ethnographers, and others who led the consumer proposition. “In design terms, we were responsible for the desirability part of the Venn diagram,” explained Brown. Meanwhile, the Money cohort was made up of “refugees from the finance world,” as Brown put it (ex-BCG, ex-McKinsey, ex-Deloitte), who ran financial models on the ideas that Brown’s team would generate.
I’m able to have authentic conversations with everyone across the organization relative to their practice, because I’ve been a strategist and I’ve been a designer.
“There was this natural tension all the time. ‘This is a great idea! But then, No one can afford it!‘” said Brown. “We always considered viability, feasibility, and desirability. I loved the constant head-butting that de-risked ideas.”
While heading the Design and Product team, Brown told me he spent more time with the Commercial Strategy crew because he was attracted to their mentality. “I was so intrigued by them, and I was drawn into all of the conversations that they were having. That gave me the confidence to start my own firm.”
After helming his small firm Dan + Jason + Co. with a former Interbrand colleague for four years, Brown once again found himself at a crossroads. “I’d turned 50 and was like, ‘Okay, what’s next? What’s the next chapter?’”
Brown spoke candidly with me about the opportunities presented to him around that time, following George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing social reckoning. “There’s only been three years out of the 30 that I’ve been doing this where I wasn’t the only person of color in the whole office,” he explained. “Even within an office of 200 people at Interbrand— I was the only one. But suddenly, Black was the new Black, and the phone was ringing off the hook, and everybody wanted some.”
But when Brown took the calls and pressed the companies for their actual plans for change, their short-sighted virtue signaling became apparent. “‘Tell me what’s fundamentally going to change about your business in response to this, with me authoring this for you— I can’t be your poster boy,’” he’d say. “‘What are your plans? Can I see your numbers right now? Can I see what your company looks like in terms of diversity statistics?’ Most of them didn’t call back.”
While those true colors disappointed Brown, he said it was an invaluable learning experience. “It was probably the first time in my career where I really felt like I was advocating for myself versus working extra hard, taking every order, and outperforming my colleagues. That moment led me to a real leadership position—advocating and being okay with a conversation like this. Rather than defaulting to not wanting to be uncomfortable, I thought, No, we’re going to talk about this. I don’t care if you’re not comfortable. That was a significant moment for me; being able to take a stance even with potential clients was a big thing.”
There’s only been three years out of the 30 that I’ve been doing this where I wasn’t the only person of color in the whole office. Even within an office of 200 people at Interbrand—I was the only one. But suddenly, Black was the new Black, and the phone was ringing off the hook, and everybody wanted some.
To help figure out his next move, Brown turned to a trusted mentor, Keith Yamashita of SYPartners, for guidance. “He’s always a bit of a guru. He’s the first person I call,” he said. “I’m thinking, ‘How do I leverage all my expertise and experience?’ And he asked, ‘Well, what do you like doing? What does your life look like, and what do you want your life to look like?”
“I knew I didn’t want to go back to creative,” Brown reflected. “I had no interest in being a Head of Creative or a Chief Creative Officer somewhere. I’d enjoyed the operator challenge so much—what it means to run a successful business.” After hooking up with Patrick Godfrey and Scott Dadich of Godfrey Dadich Partners and becoming the President of their New York office for a stint, Pearlfisher came calling.
“I couldn’t be happier with how this has worked out,” he told me. “When the call came through, I had a visceral emotional reaction. As a designer, everyone knows Pearlfisher— top-notch, industry-leading work, and it’s actually fun work. They’re legendary.” Working at a company that has done iconic work in the past is one thing, but Brown is all about looking ahead to the future. “My task is taking what has been great (and it’s not that it isn’t still great) and reclaiming some of that top-spot glow,” he said. “We have a right to do more than what we’re doing, and to make it clear that we do more.”
I had no interest in being a Head of Creative or a Chief Creative Officer somewhere. I’d enjoyed the operator challenge so much—what it means to run a successful business.
Though Brown is in the early stages of digging into Pearlfisher, he’s energized by the potential he’s already uncovered. “I’m super excited about discovering what is in the organization that they haven’t unlocked yet. There are skills and talents and capabilities that are sitting dormant, or they’re buried,” he said. “Immediately, I’m seeing a lengthy list of additional products and offerings that can come from the organization authentically. We’re not going to bolt things on, but we can stretch into places that make a ton of sense for who we are and that I think the markets will give us license to go to; it’s a natural extension of what we already do. That’s what got me really, really excited. It was the concentric circle diagram with packaging at the center, and thinking about how many rings we can start considering moving out to grow the business.”
Brown’s eclectic and meandering career path has ideally suited him to take on this new position at Pearlfisher from a place of deep, experiential understanding. “The reality is that I’m now responsible for growing an organization whose functions I’ve done all of,” he explained. “I’m able to have authentic conversations with everyone across the organization relative to their practice because I’ve been a strategist and a designer. There’s a credibility that I bring to running a creative organization, which I then think establishes a measure of trust from the beginning that you might not get from a pure operator who’s just there to grow revenue and doesn’t understand the business, the people in the business, or the product.”
It’s rare for an operator with Brown’s level of expertise also to have so much experience on the creative side, making him the ideal candidate for Pearlfisher. Looking back on his journey to this moment, every step has helped shape him to be perfectly suited for this opportunity. Even the things that might have felt like missteps at the time, like studying economics and political science in undergrad, were critical.
“The major/minor in economics and political science, combined with my design capabilities, threw me right into the world of branding,” he said. “I love design, but it needs to be functional, number one. I’m solving design problems or solving business problems through the lens of design. Tell me your business problem, and I’ll tell you how design can help me solve it.”
This perspective, cultivated through Brown’s unique and specific path, has wended to Pearlfisher’s doorstep. “Every step that happened to this point had to happen for this moment to happen!” he told me triumphantly. “Even the challenging years, I had to go through that because I learned more of what not to do than what to do, but that’s also a critical lesson. Every part of my journey was meant to happen for this opportunity to be real.”
Brand photography courtesy of Pearlfisher.