Laura Busche

Full-stack brand strategist blending design, marketing, and psychology to craft memorable brands. Over the last 12 years, I've designed identities, campaigns, and websites for the world’s most creative brands. My client list includes Creative Market, Webflow, Dribbble, National Geographic, Littledata, Digital Knack, Partners of the Americas, Domestika, among many others.

Brand Consultant

Creative Market – The World's Marketplace for Design

Head the brand's content strategy and craft memorable stories to share with blog readers, social media followers, and the creative community at large. Managed contractor relationships to produce video content, product copy, and in-depth articles related to creativity and design, cultivating relationships with thought leaders in the industry.

Developed Creative Market's signature Color of the Season program. Forecasted design trends across fields to craft 4 seasonal trend reports per year. Led product curation and social media programs. Advanced executive communications including public letters and press releases.

Brand Content Strategist

Ozone Group

Ozone Group is a full-service digital agency designing brands and websites from Latin America to the world. 

Specialized in WordPress development, we offer monthly hosting memberships that keep your site fast, performant, and secure. Members also have access to our Mission Control dashboard for real-time support and easy backups. Ozone sites are powered by Google Cloud. Details about tiers and pricing at ozonegroup.co/start. 

More about our work at www.ozonegroup.co

Cofounder

Led large-scale brand design projects, structured brand development programs, guided video and photo shoots, and facilitated brand strategy sessions. Creative directed and designed brand identities for dozens of companies and one city.

Speaker at The Next Web Conference (Amsterdam, NL), SAAS Generation (Santiago, CL), Lean Startup Conference (San Francisco, US), Startup Marketing Conference (Ft. Lauderdale, US), Reaktor Breakpoint (Helsinki, FI), Campus Party (Bogota, CO), among other global events.

Brand Director

Dribbble

Lead community content strategy. Manage contractor relationships to produce video content , product copy, and in-depth articles related to creativity and design, cultivating relationships with thought leaders in the industry.

Forecast design trends across fields to craft 4 seasonal trend reports per year. Lead product curation and social media programs. Advance executive communications including public letters and press releases.

Brand Strategist

Domestika

Structure, develop, and deliver "Content Strategy: Build Your Brand from Scratch".

Reviews:
“The course is packed with useful tools, I love her simple approach to branding you just feel less overwhelmed after going through this course.”

“Great step-by-step approach to understanding how to craft and communicate your brand. Taking this work, you then have a clear guide on how to approach developing your content. Laura is engaging to listen to and each unit is a manageable amount of time. Finished the course enthused and with a clear actionable plan. Thank you!”

Brand Strategy & Content Instructor

Webflow

Developed a content audit and playbook for Webflow, including brand positioning, personality & voice, persona profiles, content goals, pillars, and distribution plan.

Brand Strategist: Content Playbook Development

Smashing Magazine

Write articles related to design thinking, innovation and prototyping. Examples include “Up On The Wall: How Working Walls Unlock Creative Insight” and “The Skeptic’s Guide To Low-Fidelity Prototyping”. Both were included in Smashing Media’s book “Unlocking Innovation: How To Generate And Realize Great Ideas”.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/author/laura-busche/

Contributing Author

O'Reilly Media

Author of Lean Branding, a practical toolkit to help you build your own robust, dynamic brands that generate conversion—without having to hire an agency. You’ll find over 100 DIY branding tactics and inspiring case studies, and step-by-step instructions for building and measuring 25 essential brand strategy ingredients, from logo design to demo day pitches, using The Lean Startup methodology’s Build-Measure-Lean loop.

Brand Strategy Author & Instructor

World Economic Forum

The Global Shapers network of the World Economic Forum invites young individuals with great potential for future leadership roles in society. Aged between 20 and 30 years, they represent all walks of life and share a spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest. They have an entrepreneurial track record; have already initiated and delivered a major project or founded a company or organization; contribute exceptionally to serving society at large.

More in Globalshapers.org

Global Shaper

Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones

Created and delivered an 8-week brand marketing workshop for several cohorts of entrepreneurs within a Lean Launch Pad program. More than 300 entrepreneurs and their 90+ internet-based startups have experienced "Lean Branding", the workshop's name, which has since iterated into methodology for startups around the world. The Lean Branding book (www.leanbranding.com) was published by O'Reilly Media in 2014.

Senior Brand Strategist

Brand strategist, author & speaker. Helping individuals & companies build disruptive brand stories. 

Let's get started: laurabusche.com/contact or laura@laurabusche.com

-- 

Author of the Lean Branding and Powering Content books, published by O'Reilly Media. Experienced brand strategist with a track record of helping companies in the public and private sector bring their message to life with a compelling brand story, memorable visual symbols, and a bold communication strategy. My approach to brand design is holistic: it combines insights from an undergraduate degree in business, master's degree in design management, and Ph.D. in consumer psychology. I've implemented Lean Branding tactics with more than 150 entrepreneurs and their 50+ companies and regularly share branding tips at laurabusche.com/blog and instagram.com/laurabusche.

Specialties: Brand Strategy and Design, Content Marketing, Consumer Research

Let's connect:
www.facebook.com/laurabusche 
www.instagram.com/laurabusche 
www.twitter.com/laurabusche 

Superside

• Managed $310.5K in ARR, identifying customer needs and converting them into creative solutions.
• Led 20+ concurring ongoing high-paced projects—from strategy to concept to production—for international brands such as Meta, Facebook, Patagonia, and Amazon.
• Guided client partnerships, communicating ideas and consolidating feedback from various stakeholders.
• Scoped, budgeted, planned, coordinated, and executed creative projects, leveraging our team’s capabilities to achieve our customer’s business objectives.
• Supervised account strategy, identifying potential upgrade and expansion opportunities or churn risk, to ensure retention, while partnering with the CSM team to maximize usage.
• Motivated our creative team to deliver the highest quality possible, filtering our talent to fit each creative request with excellence.
• Directed creative teams—working with over 100+ designers at a time—while transforming customer expectations into executable plans.

Senior Creative Project Manager

• Selected into the LSA program (3% acceptance rate) for career acceleration toward senior leadership as a recognition of my early leadership skills and constant high performance.
• Attended weekly mentoring sessions with our Project Management Director, focusing on leadership and team management.
• Prepared and guided training sessions for the PM Team Leaders, providing tools for creative renovation and career enhancement.

Associate Creative Project Manager - Light Speed Program

Creative Project Manager

Hacienda Cochauco

• Planned and developed the brand identity, customizing assets across all platforms.
• Conceptualized and executed seasonal campaigns to increase sales, leading to over $95.000 in revenue.
• Built and hosted marketing strategies that led to a 143% increase in followers.
• Managed logistics between clients, staff, and providers.
• Developed visuals and copywriting strategies every week.
• Supervised client relationships to ensure satisfaction.
• Enhanced the automatization of social and sales platforms, to improve the client experience and grow the company’s reach.

Executive Manager + Branding Consultant

Alfombras de Guano: El Proyecto

• Developed the concept, brand, and visual storytelling for the project. 
• Designed and executed the creation of a website, a blog, and social media channels. 
• Led the copywriting and visual storytelling of the brand.
• Organized an interdisciplinary team of university professors and students exploring rug designs.
• Managed partnerships to solidify the e-commerce conversion of an Ecuadorian artisanal community, while gaining exposure.
• Conceptualized and curated the creation of the first rug collection ever developed, inspired by the abstraction of Ecuadorian animals in danger of extinction. 
• Supervised logistics and coordinated the creation of our first flagship collection, including the design, the planning, and the production. 
• Overviewed the assembly of our first collection launch inside a pop-up gallery display.

Executive Creative Director

• Wrote case studies to support positioning craftmanship in Latin America as luxury goods, instead of low-quality souvenirs and the importance of preventing the extinction of the knotted-rug.
• Published two academic papers showcasing the past, present, and future of the knotted rug and the threats that globalization is posing on craftsmanship in Latin America.
• Spoke at various national and regional conferences, showcasing the importance of the knotted rug and its impact on Ecuadorian heritage. 
• Researched the origins, processes, and potential paths of the knotted rug as a business, and the potential revival that we could bring to the Guano community.

Research Director

• Taught interns the process from concept development to execution, through a three-month long process of creative exploration on weekly calls.
• Motivated collaborative work, uniting more than 15 students to work together under a single vision.
• Showcased the importance of uniting the creative aspects of design with the business vision and implementation. 
• Led the creation of the first flagship collection done entirely by architecture and design students.
• Managed weekly check-ins to align work to the university’s requirements.

Internship Program Manager

• Visited the community of Guano to document their reality and their existing problems.
• Created social media channels for the project to come out to the world. 
• Researched the materials and processes involved in the creation of the knotted rug.

Volunteer

Siciliamia

• Conceptualized and developed the brand identity for a luxury hospitality start-up brand.
• Curated the color selection to align with the true Sicilian culture and its stories.
• Translated business needs and product branched into commercial visuals.
• Re-hired for the conceptualization and brand identity of a luxury artisanal chocolate brand.

Luxury Branding and Visual Storytelling Consultant

MPPA STUDIO

• Coordinated administrative and creative tasks with clients and providers.
• Supported design, content creation, and copywriting for email marketing campaigns through Mailchimp. 
• Communicated logistics and planning with collaborators, for the development of online summits such as 'The Secret Fashion Movement' and 'High-Profit Hustle'.
• Developed the storytelling and visuals for social media campaigns that would bring industry experts closer to start-up students and entrepreneurs.

Executive Assistant + Project Manager

Universidad San Francisco de Quito

• Strengthened student's writing capacities in both English and Spanish, by pioneering inside the first Writing Center tutoring program in both our university and our country.
• Delivered individual and group tutoring sessions for over 500 students.
• Generated a healthy environment for all types of students to seek guidance on skills such as grammar, syntax, and composition of written tasks.

Writing Tutor

• Selected as a tutor for my outstanding academic performances in subjects of Creative Direction, Branding, Economics, Business, Mathematics, Composition, and Design Software (such as AutoCAD, Sketchup, Lumion, and Adobe Creative Suite).
• Built a healthy learning environment for students with pedagogical barriers to fill any gaps left from regular classes and perform academically.
• Simplified complex subjects into a communication style that facilitated learning.

Academic Tutor

• Graded papers, projects, and exams in subjects related to Economics, Philosophy, and Tourism for over 2500 students. 
• Led as a substitute professor for various events and specific classes.
• Collaborated as a communication link between the professor and students to enhance the learning experience.
• Connected students to tools that improved their academic performances and overall education experience.
•	Connected students to tools that helped them improve their academic performances.

Teacher Assistant

DMI Arquitectura | Construcción

• Built the plans, material selection, and rendering visualization for two completed restaurants.
• Modeled the 3D visualization for USFQ’s SIME clinic renovation proposal.
• Converted abstract ideas and concepts into a commercial proposal for a scholar client. The proposal was converted into a full renovation project completed in 2018. 
•	Developed models and technical drawings using AutoCAD + SketchUp and postproduction with Illustrator and Photoshop.

Interior Design Intern

Hola, mi gente! I’m a multifaceted interdisciplinary creative following my passions as the guiding principle to an authentic, non-linear career path. Let me show you how I got here:

• I got my degree in interior design at 22, but months after graduating with honors, I realized I couldn’t imagine the rest of my life in that field. The problem was, I didn’t know which one I could.
• I took a chance and without credentials, pivoted my way into different industries and explored 7 to 8 jobs, simultaneously. I was obsessed with the journey of finding the answers. Funny enough, I realized that the question disappeared on the way.
• My permissionless approach forged a new creative path for me, leveraging my cross-industry experiences to position myself as a multi-hyphenate creator who speaks the language of freedom. I am creating a one-of-a-kind career.

However, along the way, I noticed I was not the only one who felt that way. All around me, I saw creatives treating their title as a chaining sentence and having to choose between following their passions or making a living. 

Everybody was experiencing it, but nobody was doing anything about it. 
Not on my watch.

I now guide other creatives to pivot and renovate their careers, stepping into the front stage of their lives and owning who they are. I believe that our overlapping passions are the key to our highest potential and our ticket into the light.

My mission is to share my own experiences and intersect leadership, creativity, and education as a way of transforming the entrepreneurial landscape in my country and Latin America.

I believe our talent needs no crutches, but we do need more people showing us the backstage work behind success. I offer to start with myself. 

It’s showtime, baby. Vamos a meterle sazón.

🔗 Find me on Instagram, YouTube, and Tiktok: @gabrielazaldumbide

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Laura Busche

Gabriela Zaldumbide

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