About Voltaire
You can call me Volt.
I am an optimist, a realist, and a baritone. But professionally, I am a translator between the worlds of institutional strategy and human emotion.
For over three decades, I have stood at the intersection of creative storytelling and institutional strategy. My career has moved in cycles, spanning fundraising, alumni relations, web strategy, user experience (UX), and cross-channel creative expression.
The common thread across every role I’ve held—from a development director to an agency CEO—is a devotion to empathy, story, and technology.
At a Glance
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Executive Vice President, Brand and Web Strategy, Carnegie
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Northwestern University (B.S. Communications)
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management (MBA)
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Brand Strategy and Activation, Web Strategy, Web Governance, User-Centered Design, Information Architecture, Experience and Journey Mapping, Fundraising
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CrossFit, Travel, Food and Wine, Photography, Flute, Guitar, and Conversational French
I spent the first decade of my professional life in development, working directly for higher education institutions including National Louis University and Trinity International University. I learned early on that you cannot move a donor or an alumnus with a statistic alone; you have to move them with a vision rooted in their hopes, dreams, and values.
After completing my MBA , I pivoted to the digital side of the house, serving as a new media producer at Lipman Hearne. But the entrepreneurial bug bit quickly.
In 2001, I co-founded mStoner with the legendary Michael Stoner. For 20 years, we grew the agency into a powerhouse specializing in digital transformation for mission-driven organizations. As CEO, I focused on the intersection of business strategy and client experience.
The Journey
Coming Full Circle at Carnegie
In 2022, the mStoner team joined Carnegie, the leading marketing and enrollment agency in the country.
Initially, I served as the Executive Vice President of Creative and Web, managing teams of talented writers, strategists, designers, and developers. It was an honor to lead those teams, but careers often circle back to where they began.
Today, I have stepped into a new role as Executive Vice President of Brand and Web Strategy.
This is a deliberate return to what I love most: executive consulting, strategic problem-solving, and industry thought leadership. It is a "full circle" moment—returning to the hands-on strategic work that defined my two decades leading mStoner, but now amplified by the resources and talent of Carnegie.
In this chapter, my energy is directed toward three goals:
Solving Complex Challenges: Helping our clients navigate their stickiest institutional problems.
Partnership Experience: Ensuring that our engagements are not just transactional, but transformational.
Sharing Knowledge: Generously sharing insights with the higher education community to lift the industry as a whole.
My Focus Now
My Philosophy
Why do I do this? Because story science tells us that human beings make most decisions based on emotion. Nothing has more power to move us than a beautiful story, well told.
But wit and verse and beautiful images aren’t enough. To tell a story that truly resonates, we must possess a deep understanding and respect for the minds and hearts of the people we’re trying to engage. That is where the work begins.