Today we’d like to introduce you to LG Brown.
LG, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I spent a lot of years doing the marketing thing – leading teams, managing big client portfolios and advertising budgets, and eventually going out on my own as a consultant. I was good at it, and by most reasonable measures it was a successful career. But after a while I started realizing I didn’t really want the business world to be the organizing principle of my entire life.
So I started wandering a little more. I made more room for music, arts projects, community work, and the corners of St. Louis that I actually wanted to spend my time in. That turned into performing, producing, volunteering, hosting events, collaborating with artists, and getting involved with a bunch of organizations and creative spaces around town, including ARTICA and Sister Cities Galway, among other endeavors.
I still do marketing work, and I still enjoy it, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle now. These days I’m more interested in following interesting people and projects, making things, helping other people make things, and seeing where that leads. The path is a lot less tidy than it used to be, but I think that’s probably the point.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Walking away from a conventional career path meant giving up a certain amount of certainty, and there have definitely been periods where I [and my very supportive/understanding wife] wondered whether I was making sensible choices.
I think one of the biggest challenges is staying organized working on so many different kinds of projects, with so many different kinds of people. I use a lot of different tools to stay in touch & productive with collaborators in the business and arts worlds, and it can be quite a lot to keep up with.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
My consulting business has evolved into something broader than a traditional marketing business. Marketing and brand strategy are still a major part of what I do every week, but the real through-line is that I like interesting projects and I like helping make things happen.
That might mean consulting with a business on growth strategy, producing a music video, engineering a recording session, designing lighting for a show, helping organize an arts event, or working with other artists and community organizations around St. Louis.
I think what I’m most proud of is that the work reflects a breadth of my actual interests rather than a narrowed professional identity. I’ve spent a lot of my career learning how to organize people, ideas, resources and creative energy around a goal, and I’ve found that those skills translate surprisingly well across business, production and the arts.
If someone comes to me with an interesting problem or an ambitious idea, there’s a decent chance I’ll want to figure out how to help make it come to life.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Curious, playful and liable to organize a group to do something cool or interesting, even as a kid. I’ve always read a lot, including a lot of different far-out subjects. My family moved quite a lot growing up, and I think that reality lent toward a lot of imaginative and solitary creative hobbies.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lgbrown.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisthevoiceofl/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lgbrown/
