SAN FRANCISCO, USA // Mike Hartman is an integrated creative leader who has worked above- and below-the-line in virtually every industry — from automotive/motorcycles, telecommunications, technology and retail to consumer electronics, financial services, luxury and healthcare. He's known for bringing serious conceptual firepower combined with an insights-driven approach, as well as possessing a truly remarkable ability to identify and pull in superior talent, rally teams and build departments and businesses from the ground up — something he's done several times. 

Mike spent the first decade of his career working at a variety of advertising boutiques and Internet start-ups before moving on to Digitas, then leading digital creative for WPP's Chemistry cross-agency team assembled to service J&J, and most recently heading up creative for LBi's health and wellness vertical — an operating unit he helped launch in early 2010. Currently, Mike serves as the Chief Creative Officer for W2O Group, where he’s responsible for the network’s global creative output, infusing art, copy and user experience with insight-driven strategy to deliver what he calls “engineered innovation.” Over the past 20 years, Mike has done everything from conceive and develop prototypes for innovative concepts like drag-and-drop virtual in-store and online modeling of motorcycle parts/accessories and POS synchronization for Harley-Davidson (in 1998!), challenge current thinking regarding how healthcare professionals access and share content, leverage evolving sharing tendencies around purchase decision behaviors to create online/offline "social retailing" opportunities, to co-writing documentary films, such as Conversations with an Ad Man.

A writer and poet, with an advanced degree in writing, as well as degrees in literature, art and user experience, Mike has been published in industry trades such as BtoB, CMO, DMNews, MarketingProfs and Target Marketing. His work has been honored in various industry awards shows, and he often leads workshops and speaks on the university level. As for poetry, his work has appeared in leading literary journals such as Rosebud, Barrow Street, Slipstream, Cairn and Margie: The American Journal of Poetry, to name a few.