MY STORY

IT ALL STARTED WHEN…

I arrived at Rock Springs Airport in Wyoming. July 2000. Wide-eyed kid from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, But I wasn’t entirely unprepared for the world. I had attended an international school and traveled extensively from an early age. I was comfortable crossing cultures. What I wasn’t prepared for was being completely on my own.

Scholarship in hand, ready to remake myself in a country I'd only seen in movies. Overnight I was cut off from everyone I knew. No Myspace, no Facebook, no cell phone. My father had made the trip with me. Before he turned back toward the gate, he pressed $350 into my hand and said, "Go make something of yourself."

That was the whole plan.

What I figured out over the next few years, mostly by accident, was that my love of Art bled into design which I enjoyed a great deal.

More than a decade in, that instinct has led me to impact some of the most recognizable brands. State Farm, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, CNN, Yahoo! and many more.

I learned early that surviving unfamiliar rooms was its own education. Reading people, moving fast, figuring out what nobody was saying out loud. That instinct never left. It just found a better outlet.

That's still what I do.

YONATHAN GEBREYES