I’m Husani Barnwell, a New York-based creative and innovation leader building ideas, brands, experiences and systems with clarity, craft and purpose.

What I can do

How I lead

Ideas improve in the open. I bring energy and possibility into the room, opening minds, expanding the vision and helping teams shape promising thoughts into stronger ones. I lead by making the standard visible: sharper references, clearer thinking, tighter feedback and a real reason behind every note. Over more than two decades, I’ve led multidisciplinary creative teams from small senior groups to departments of more than a dozen, directed agency and production partners through complex builds, and sold ideas to CMOs, CEOs, presidents, VPs and rooms full of people who needed to believe before they could buy. The work across this site was sold that way: one idea at a time, argued clearly, shaped collaboratively and protected through execution.

I’ve also spent more than a decade teaching and mentoring the next generation of creatives. In the classroom at the School of Visual Arts, through mentorship programs and in the reps and reviews with my own teams, the goal is the same: expand what people believe is possible, then help them develop the judgment to get there themselves. The best creative leadership does more than improve the work in front of you. It leaves more people capable of making great work after you leave the room.

That standard has deep roots. I came up through design and architecture, disciplines where the work has to stand up and not just look good, and I have been leading and making from the start. At St. Paul’s I presided over the art and design societies and captained the track team; at Harvard I served as Head Designer and a board member of Harvard Graphic Design and president of the university’s Design Society. Different arenas, one lesson: earn your place, then deliver when it counts.

Where I’ve worked

• BBDO NY
• Remedy Edge/DDB Health
• McCann Health
• BGB Group
• R/GA
• MullenLowe U.S.
• Code and Theory
• dentsumcgarrybowen
• Merkley + Partners
• MRM//McCann Worldgroup
• Digitas
• Digitas Health
• Edelman Digital
• KBS+
• Havas
• Tribal DDB
• Brand New School
• Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness
• WPP UniWorld Group
• GlobalHue
• Walton Isaacson
• DonorsChoose.org
• School of Visual Arts
• Harvard Graphic Design

Selected recognition

My work has appeared on advertising’s biggest stage, including AIG’s Game Time during Super Bowl XXXVIII, a broadcast that averaged nearly 90 million viewers, and across national NFL, NBA and MLS games and playoffs. The ideas behind it have been sold at every level, from challenger brands to the top of the Fortune 500, and honored along the way.

Additional recognition and coverage includes Adweek, Creativity, Shoot, Rolling Stone, Billboard, BusinessWire, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, Metropolis, Graphic Design USA, a Silver in the 4A’s MAIP competition and the David McCord Prize for Outstanding Talent in Art at Harvard.

Selected press

• The New York Times, quoted on the launch of DonorsChoose (2002)
• Revision Path, interviewed by Maurice Cherry
• BMCC / CUNY, coaching a national-competition-winning student team

Where I’ve studied