Yes, that is my real name.
I am Sage Turk. If I’m not what you expected, I don’t blame you. I’m not a mountain-top guru or a middle eastern shrub or a vegan stripper (although when I do drag it is as Helvetica Bold). What I am is passionate. And helpful. And kind. I do love to talk, but not usually about myself – so allow me to make an exception and tell you about who I am…after all you did come to my website.
As for my career, I have spent almost 20 years leading incredible people, projects and products in almost every creative field. Here are the highlights.
I lead Creative Projects
10+ years experience. notable titles: Head of ExpertVoice Studios – ExpertVoice, Sr. Director of Content Strategy – Expertvoice
For the last decade, my life has been dedicated to building and leading teams of creatives – writers, designers, illustrators, and more – who specialize in educational and authentic multi-media experiences. The in-house agency I built within ExpertVoice mastered the skills necessary to produce informative, interactive multi-media content for hundreds (yes hundreds) of the world’s biggest brands on a massive scale (400+ content experiences, including microsites, videos, and quizzes, per year). Sure, my teams and I have won awards (there are a few heavy shelves inside our studio) but it’s the smaller more personal projects, the ones that really let myself and my team show off their creativity, that I’m particularly proud of. I’ve written hundreds of scripts and voice-acted. I’ve podcasted and done public speaking. I’ve illustrated kids’ books and card games. Every square inch of blank paper within a 30-meter radius is covered in doodles. Being creative is my addiction and the first step is admitting I have a problem. Seriously. I can’t stop. Please send help.
A quick glimpse at the myriad projects i’ve overseen at ExpertVoice.
I lead Marketing Projects
14+ years experience. Notable Titles: Sr. Creative Director – Letter23 Advertising, Sr. Creative Director – Swarmbuilder
I began my career building campaigns and content for massive national (and international) brands across a dizzying array of media types for one of Utah’s top advertising agencies – and in the 13 years since I’ve never slowed down. If you can name a traditional or digital medium, I’ve personally designed and/or lead teams of creatives to deliver it. I eat marketing acronyms for breakfast. I bleed branding. I frankly love communicating with people, and whether that be the surprise and delight of a well-crafted radio ad, a particularly memorable TV spot or helping build out an advocacy marketing strategy, as long as it’s in the service helping people find out more about things they love, I’m happy.
A video project I helmed to explain the value of Advocacy Marketing done right.
I lead Video Production
10+ years experience. Notable titles: Head Writer/Director – Epic Genius Media, Director of Creative Services – Experticity
As a producer, director, and writer I have been responsible for creating every conceivable form of video-based marketing content on the planet. I have built internal video teams and capabilities from the ground up including, most recently, a fully functional video production studio that began in a humble conference room with a home-made green screen and has since transformed into a full-service creative agency (with a real STORE BOUGHT green screen). Every year my team produced hundreds of hours of world-class content quickly, and efficiently and we always exceeded our client’s expectations (while coming in under budget). I happen to be good on and off camera, love interviewing and interacting with talent and write screenplays in my spare time…if such a thing even exists.
A montage of many of our most creative videos featuring my team’s motion capture work.
I lead Product Development
7+ years experience. Notable Titles: Principal Product Manager – Expertvoice
Along with developing content, I have also been heavily involved in developing the tools, templates, and features necessary to scale production and improve the user experience, mobile compatibility, and speed to launch of a complicated array of Social, eCommerce, and gamified online educational experiences. Since 2018 I have transitioned my career into Product Development, leading my team to develop numerous high-profile projects. I have since risen through the ranks to become a Principal Product Manager and continue to work on our most visionary and forward-looking platform improvements and features. From pre-vis and testing, developing phased go-to-market strategies, user and AB testing, product marketing our releases and utilizing SCRUM, Sprint & Agile methodologies, I have been critically involved in deploying hundreds of releases for an extremely complex SaaS/Marketing/Education/eCommerce company with a keen eye for turning exciting new user experiences into data-driven results that measurably impact our business performance metrics.
An overview of one of our most massive feature builds – a host of client facing self services apps.
I lead Client Collaboration
Number of clients interfaced with: 500+ notable categories: Outdoor, Apparel & Footwear, Beauty, Nutrition, Hunt/Fish, Consumer Electronics, Non-Profit
Over the course of my career I have been required to meet with hundreds of brand stakeholders in diverse positions – from Marketing Directors to Sales Leads to Product Engineers to CEOs. For the last decade, I have been involved almost daily in collaborating, presenting work, fielding feedback and developing goals and KPIs for a huge and diverse pool of clients and partners. I frequently assist our sales team in project scoping, I coach my team on improving their client interaction skills and I take it as a point of pride that my personal relationships with my clients and internal stakeholders are universally positive.
A compilation of testimonials from clients i’ve interfaced with over the years.
And most importantly, I lead People
Average team size managed: 20 Maximum team size managed: 35 Number of interviews: 200+ Number of direct hires: 20+
Throughout my career, my greatest joy has been the people I’ve worked with. I have been honored to lead and thus be taught by dozens of incredible, talented individuals. My number one career aspiration has been and will always be to use my position to better the lives of those beneath and beside me. I love the challenges and rewards of leadership and the satisfaction of watching a team come together to tackle a complex problem both efficiently and enthusiastically. I love working 1 on 1, in small groups, and in large, highly specialized team structures. I am not so much a people person as a person person. I believe in the inherent individual worth of all I meet and love being reminded time and again how much I still have to learn from my fellow humans.
A favorite example of our yearly holiday team Christmas “card”.
Odds & Ends
What’s this? You’re still here. Well that must mean you want to hear fun facts about me so here goes:
🎨 I am a semi-professional artist and illustrator and own an independent queer/counterculture/post-religious art gallery called the Museum and Gallery of Misfit Art.
👩🎤 One of my kids is named after an Arrested Development character (Maebe) and the other after the greatest pop icon of all time (Bowie).
🐳 I once pet the tongue of the whale actor that played Willy in the movie Free Willy.
🥾 I have hiked or camped almost every square inch of Utah’s wilderness, even the parts i’m not supposed to.
🪨 My primary partner and I are obsessed with rock hounding and collecting, especially coprolites which are dinosaur poop.
🧚 I wrote an almost 200 page screen play for the sequel to beloved 80’s fantasy adventure Willow.
🌶️ Hot sauce goes on everything.
📖 I once co-read Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor out loud from start to finish for a podcast mini-series I helped produce.
📣 I was at one time a professional cheerleading camp instructor for the National Cheerleaders Association.
🌝 I’ve been sunburned by the moon before.
🤫 Only one of these things is not true.
Thanks for visiting…
If you want to know more, contact me at sturk.experticity@gmail.com or find me on linkedin or instagram (i’m the only Sage Turk so I should be easy to find) or watch more videos from my team here: ExpertVoice Video Channel . Bye!