Good work is made with good people.
Both move a brand forward.
Maybe you need a guide to help strategically grow your content marketing programs and expand into new brand territories, or you’re just looking for a plug-and-play specialist who can help you tackle your newest sponsorship initiative.
Whether your well-oiled marketing team could use an extra set of capable hands or you’re starting out and setting a foundation, you need a good person who’s there to do good work.
You’ve come to the right place.
Values
Be Honest About What’s Possible
No one can do everything, so I won’t oversell what I can. But I also won’t sell myself short, and will find new ways to do more, better.
Push Hard, But Not Too Hard
Getting outside of comfort zones can be, well, uncomfortable, but necessary to escape the “that’s how it’s always been” rut that’s standing in the way of progress.
Be Fun, Have Fun, Surround Yourself
With Fun People
Life is short. Enjoy the ones you’re with day in and out, and be a joy to them.
Don’t Delegate Work
I Wouldn’t Do Myself
Keep in touch with what’s possible by knowing how the work is done and foster trust by sharing the load.
Do Work You’re Proud Of
Don’t ever phone it in or take the easy way out. It may not be award-winning but it will always be respectable and professional.
ABOUT ME
For most of my career, I’ve been Alissa Cherry (a pretty great last name, IMO), but I married my biggest cheerleader, so you can call me Alissa Gillen, too.
For the standard CV stuff, head on over to LinkedIn. TL;DR: 20 years of building brands and teams across geographies and industries; wearer of all the hats.
From an early age, I was drawing menus in my grandma’s kitchen and thoughtfully designing décor for my sister’s preschool class party. Fast-forward and I was tearing pages from the JCPenney home catalog, rearranging my bedroom, much to my mother and her wood floors’ chagrin.
At Oklahoma State University, I studied Interior Design but quickly realized I didn’t just want to design spaces — I wanted to write about them, too. With a late-college change, I graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Arts in mass communications and received the Outstanding Senior Student in Print Journalism award from the faculty.
LinkedIn will give you the ensuing professional years and my Tulsa > Denver > Dallas > NYC > Tulsa migration.
Today, I’m wielding power tools, renovating our historic bungalow, testing my newest cookbook find, orchestrating a porch cocktail hour (snacks! playlist! seating!) or designing a minute-by-minute, illustrated itinerary for my next travel adventure.
If you couldn’t tell: I love to tell a story and curate experiences. To put pictures and words on paper and see how they make each other shine. Or host an event down to the smallest meaningful detail. I do a little happy dance at those breakthrough ah-ha moments, where an idea comes to life or I solve a problem and know I’ve hit the mark when I make myself laugh at a punny tagline.
And I love working with cool, interesting, kind, focused, genuine folks who like a little happy dance moment, too.
Why Agile?
I approached developing my own brand the same way bigger companies should: By examining what I stand for, how I work, what I believe and what feelings I want to evoke in words and visuals when someone encounters my work.
As a sole proprietor, using my moniker begged the questions: What if I change my name? (Check.) Or my services change and my team grows? Or tools, technologies and trends necessitate a change in my approach?
That’s when I realized all of those “what ifs” have one thing in common: They require me to be agile. It’s a skill I’ve honed throughout my career: changing industries, shifting priorities and living comfortably in “other duties as assigned.”
Thus Agile Brand Studio was born, and the logo followed: Able to move quickly, with an adaptable character and possessing a resourceful approach. Ready to be in motion, to drive, to do, and to perform with grace.
Agile Brand Studio 