About Mary Elise Chavez

Executive Creative Director @Emotif

I'm a Brand Builder // I enjoy working creatively at the intersections of brand strategy, design, customer experience and technology - enabling me to be a part of crafting brands that enhance our lives.

“We care about an ongoing narrative of design in objects, in ideas, and in experiences because they provide opportunities for us to participate in a new understanding of an incredibly turbulent world. Design serves us for both cultural purposes and adaptational purposes.” - Grant McCracken

Method:
I work with executive teams to define and translate vision into evolutionary brands, products and experiences. For me, great ideas come from the interplay between strategic intent, visual design, business model innovation and a deep understanding of the shifting technology landscape.

Growth:
I've helped pioneer and grow companies for the last 15 years, including one of the first online magazines for women, a full-service digital agency, an emerging mobile tech studio and a suite of premium hospitality businesses. I'm equally comfortable working with startups at the Series A/B stage as I am working with established corporate and consumer brands.

Most recently, I've helped build and develop the Design Practice at Emotif, a brand experience consultancy with roots in research and strategy, and core strengths in multidisciplinary design and activation. We build world-class experience brands. Get to know us at: emotif.us

Editorial

Testimonials

“Mary is one of the most talented creative forces I have worked with in my years building technology driven ventures. It is a rare find to bring together world-class design skills with a firm understanding of new technologies in a person who can also jump in and “get it done” to hit deadlines. I have great appreciation for the work we’ve done together building groundbreaking products that put usability and great design in focus. In short, Mary is truly one of a kind!”
- Raj Amin, Founder, Teem Ventures

“I worked with Mary for several years at OysterLabs and she is one of the most versatile and talented designers I’ve ever worked with. Her UI designs are always a work of art - functional yet full of brilliant new ideas (always!). Exceptional leader, confident product manager, expert at UX, really hard worker, great friend and team player - highly recommend Mary for a position where making a miracle daily is expected.”
- Alex Apollonsky, CTO, Mana Health

“Mary Elise Chavez is truly an artist, creator and professional. I have admired Mary since we first worked together as someone who delighted in creating meaningful and beautiful user experiences for applications on web and mobile devices. Her attention to detail and her organizational expertise is bested only by her ability to explore user requirements and discover unique and effective ways for apps to communicate their value and functionality. When she engages with clients, she quickly becomes a subject matter expert and is highly skilled at communicating creative and functional goals to project managers and development teams. She’s a quick learner and an excellent teacher, and I would not hesitate to have her on any team requiring excellent designs and thoughtful user experience engineering.”
 - Howard, Olah-Reiken, GM, The Glimpse Group

“She has grown a department and started an evolution, reshaping the way our company works and positions themselves in the marketplace and sell our services; while pushing for supremely high quality of work. She is constantly encouraging her team to grow alongside her. She’s a leader, a strategist, a brand ambassador, an electronic shock to the system and a positive force for any company to have on its side.”
- Tracey Busch, Director of Operations and Accounts, Space150

“Creative, stylish and smooth, Mary is a wealth of knowledge on all things new and trending in the tech world. No matter who the client is or how off the wall their work request may be, Mary always has an abundant supply of options ready in her arsenal of strategies. An absolute pleasure to be around and to work with, she is my goto when I am stuck in a creative rut.”
- Jason Manders, User Experience Director, Visto

“Over the course of working together, Mary consistently showed leadership on her team to deliver high-quality creative. I relied on Mary to collaborate on long-lead plans, but was most impressed with her flexibility to execute time sensitive projects, and patience turning around last minute changes. Mary was easy to communicate with, maintaining a level of organization and professionalism that exceeded expectations. I see great value in the time spent working together.”
- Calli Goldstein, Digital Sales Manager, Sony Music

“Amazing work. The brand is perfect.”
- Rich Abery, Scrum Master, Velocity

“I felt like giving her a round of applause; it’s so helpful to learn how intelligent branding is approached and developed.”
- Howard Stone, CFO, Velocity

“Incredible work on the Velocity brand assets, vision and voice, it’s very impressive”
- Gauthier Derrien, Senior Roles at Uber and Velocity

“Honored to be working with someone of her caliber, the rebrand and brand strategy was something I didn’t realize was possible until I saw her great work. I’m pumped to see where we go from here, it was very insightful to see her at work”
- Alex Goodger, Lead Developer, Velocity

“Highly intelligent, intuitive and strategic, Mary consults effectively and crafts custom solutions to address our clients’ concerns and pain points. As a teammate, she focuses on solutions instead of problems and is a joy to collaborate with.”
- Ariana Ahmadzadeh, Business Development Manager, Fisher International