Benjamin Slade is a creative director and brand leader based out of Austin, TX.

Currently, Ben is responsible for brand strategy, brand marketing, brand creative and external comms at Workrise; a late-stage startup valued at $2.9B that is changing the way the biggest players in energy find, evaluate, purchase, and deploy the goods and services they need to power our world.

Prior to moving in-house to join Workrise in 2020, Ben co-founded and built what.it.is — a brand and digital agency based in Austin — from the ground up. Over the course of a decade plus, Ben and team grew the agency from a small shop working with local brands like SXSW, Milk + Honey, Hopdoddy, and Uchi Restaurant Group – to a full-service agency providing brand ID, retail experience, advertising, and performance marketing creative for large national and global organizations such as IBM, Marathon OIl, PBS, Dell Technologies, and NatureSweet, among others.

Ben’s early career years were spent wearing many hats at The Contemporary Austin, where he ran membership and digital communications, helped stand up a corner store at PULSE during the Miami fairs, delivered print and environmental design for numerous exhibitions and programs, and worked closely with Duane King and Ian Coyle on a rebrand and digital experience for the institution which was launched at the reopening of their flagship downtown Austin space in October, 2010.