loader-logo
View My Resume

Amanda Kay

I’m a marketing leader with and brand builder with wide-ranging experience in B2B, SaaS, fintech, hospitality, and consumer products.

I develop meaningful, memorable brands. thoughtful, measurable campaigns. collaborative, goal-oriented teams. scalable strategies that drive revenue.

Brand Experience

Some of the Brands I’ve Worked With

brand-experience-_autograph-collection
brand-experience-_basf
brand-experience-_bosch
brand-experience-_curio-collection
brand-experience-_hilton
brand-experience-_house-of-marley
brand-experience-_marriott-international
brand-experience-milliken
brand-experience-_motto-by-hilton
brand-experience-__pyrex
brand-experience-_sheraton
brand-experience-_signia-hilton
brand-experience-_sunbeam
brand-experience-_tribute-portfolio
Whirlpool

About

Amanda Kay

Expertise

I’m a Swiss Army knife of verbal and visual communication — passionate about:

  • Developing meaningful, memorable brands from the ground up
  • Stewarding them through evolving business needs
  • Amplifying them with thoughtful, measurable campaigns

I think that great messaging is jargon-free, that finding insights in data is fun, and that working smarter always beats working harder.

When I’m not building brands, I practice enthusiastically mediocre yoga, compete in nerdtastic online trivia, wage war against the aphids in my garden, and seek out new foods to sample — both from pros and in my own kitchen. I lack any musical talent, but excel at curating never-ending playlists and love experiencing live music. I’d love to hear who you saw at your first concert and your best concert!

Education and Certifications

The University of Notre Dame

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Graphic Design

Cum Laude

Google Skillshop

Google Analytics IQ

Certified power user

LinkedIn Learning

Digital Marketing Specialist Certification

26+ hour course with exams in SEO, social media, content marketing, Google Ads & Analytics, email marketing

IDEO U

Storytelling for Influence

5-week course in methodology for telling powerful, persuasive stories

I'm a Swiss Army knife of verbal and visual communication — passionate about:

  • Developing meaningful, memorable brands from the ground up
  • Stewarding them through evolving business needs
  • Amplifying them with thoughtful, measurable campaigns

I think that great messaging is jargon-free, that finding insights in data is fun, and that working smarter always beats working harder.

When I'm not building brands, I practice enthusiastically mediocre yoga, compete in nerdtastic online trivia, wage war against the aphids in my garden, and seek out new foods to sample — both from pros and in my own kitchen. I lack any musical talent, but excel at curating never-ending playlists and love experiencing live music. I'd love to hear who you saw at your first concert and your best concert!

The University of Notre Dame

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Graphic Design
Cum Laude

Google Skillshop

Google Analytics IQ
Certified power user

LinkedIn Learning

Digital Marketing Specialist Certification
26+ hour course with exams in SEO, social media, content marketing, Google Ads & Analytics, email marketing

IDEO U

Storytelling for Influence
5-week course in methodology for telling powerful, persuasive stories

Software

Adobe

After Effects
Animate
Illustrator
InDesign
Photoshop
Premiere Pro
Premiere Rush

Google

Ads
Analytics
Search Console

Code

CSS
HTML
PHP

Other

Asana
Figma
Hootsuite
Hubspot
MailChimp
PowerPoint
Smartsheet
Sprout Social
Squarespace
Webflow
WordPress

Experience & Key Accomplishments

Creative Marketing Manager
Beyond Finance — Chicago 04/2024- Present
My creative team of 4 builds campaigns for 3 fintech brands — web experiences, email, and direct mail — and supports company-wide creative needs — including internal comms, public relations, talent acquisition, and the endless thirst for more animated Slackmojis.
  • Partnering with analysts and cross-functional stakeholders on A/B testing lead-gen forms across acquisition channels (affiliate, PPC, and more), and on optimizing paid social and display creative through iterative performance testing.
  • Spearheaded qualitative research to sharpen the team's A/B testing strategy — in one instance, a test targeting a +10% lift in contact rate delivered +43%.
  • Led the UX thinking behind the industry's first fully online enrollment experience — rethinking the flow end to end and reaching people who'd rather do almost anything than get on a phone call.
  • Spearheaded qualitative research to sharpen the team's A/B testing strategy — in one instance, a test targeting a +10% lift in contact rate delivered +43%.
  • Leading my team's shift to AI-assisted design and development — most recently, Figma Design Agent for on-brand mockups and Claude for front-end code.
  • Manage vendor relationships and tool administration for platforms used company-wide — including Figma, Canva, Knak, and iStock — plus ongoing exploration of tools like UserTesting and LottieFiles.
Creative Director
Atlas — Chicago 03/2022 - 02/2023
Led creative — a scrappy team of 3 plus a rotating cast of freelancers — partnering closely with leads across comms, growth, content, product, and sales to run global B2B campaigns for a rapidly-scaling HR SaaS platform.
  • Contributed to a 200% jump in website traffic and 55% LinkedIn follower growth via an accelerated, total rebrand — shaping brand direction alongside an external agency and leadership. Led brand implementation across landing pages, social templates, digital and print OOH, and environmental design for a major conference sponsorship.
  • Partnered closely with Product Marketing on webinars run in collaboration with external organizations — including landing pages, email, and organic/paid social campaigns
  • Partnered with Field Marketing on materials and run of show for national and international conferences; managed exhibition contractors' structural design and produced the booth's graphics and video content
  • Designed decks for investors and analysts that helped bring in up to $200M in VC funding.
Marketing & Creative Director
Traffic Tech — Chicago 06/2021 - 12/2021

Scaled marketing processes and systems for a rapidly growing company with 30+ locations, laying the groundwork for a strategic brand refresh.

Marketing Director
The Gettys Group — Chicago 01/2020 - 10/2020
Headed brand marketing for multiple lines of service and sub-brands for a firm specializing in hospitality branding and interiors.
  • Cut thousands of dollars in waste from the annual budget by auditing department spending and developing best practice guidelines.
  • Managed external vendor relationships — including PR and SEO agencies, web developers, and photographers and videographers for professional hotel shoots — first as a Senior Designer, then continuing after promotion to Marketing Director
  • Launched 2–4 multi-channel campaigns per month for content marketing pieces that held the longest session durations of any content on the site.
  • Increased engagement for three brands on social media: ◦  LinkedIn post shares by +60%; ◦  Instagram engagement per impression by +42%, Facebook by +30%; ◦  Instagram net follower growth by +44%, Facebook by +36%.
Senior Brand Strategist
The Gettys Group — Chicago 06/2019 - 01/2020

Developed differentiated brands for hotels, bars, and restaurants through strategic market research and competitor analysis — resulting in successful positioning statements, brand narratives, visual identity concepts that stood out in a crowded market.

  • Received high praise from a major client’s global SVP for delivering the best brand concept presentation they had seen, leading to new business opportunities.
  • Co-led an initiative to rebrand and relaunch our own service lines to better position them for highly targeted clients; one launch campaign created the singularly highest day of traffic on our website that year.
Senior Brand Designer
The Gettys Group — Chicago 04/2016 - 06/2019

Developed and executed creative concepts to support The Gettys Group and its multiple sub-brands’ B2B marketing and branding.

  • Took on the added scope of a vacant Marketing Director role — overseeing external PR and SEO consultants, directing social and email campaigns, and shaping strategic brand messaging.
  • Produced and co-directed a video about company culture that has been watched 33.5k times — with average viewers watching 80% of the 1:25 duration — leading to an increase in quality candidate applications.
Senior Communication & Branding Manager
TEAMS Design — Chicago 04/2015 - 03/2016

A decades-old global consultancy designing everything from consumer products to digital experiences. I scaled solo digital marketing work into a collaborative process for a global team.

  • Helped fine-tune and implement the company's brand refresh as part of an international committee — from creative calls like nixing a weak color palette to leading execution across presentation templates, social assets, and more.
Senior Graphic Designer
TEAMS Design — Chicago 09/2010 - 04/2015
  • Built and ran the company's first official social media presence — on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter — complete with content guidelines, from scratch.
  • Rescued a failing website project by building an alternative site in Joomla; meant to be a stopgap, it remained the company's website for several years.
  • Succeeded where others had failed in pitching global leadership on retiring a logo that hadn't evolved since its 1962 introduction — an idea they'd shot down every time it came up before.
Visual Branding
TEAMS Design — Chicago 04/2007 - 09/2010

If it wasn't industrial design or engineering, it was probably on my plate: packaging, app design, video editing, brand guidelines, logo and icon work, UI design, writing case studies, blog posts, event photography. Also conceptualized and coded a "configurator" desktop app that let clients interactively customize product colors, materials, and finishes — speeding up approvals and helping clients build custom SKUs for retailers like Target and Walmart.

Socialize

  • Recent Activity

  • Latest Post

Contact

Let’s Connect