About Kritch

Born in the Bronx and raised in Los Angeles, I went to Santa Monica College after graduating from high school, where I excelled as an athlete competing in track and field. At SMC, I was fortunate to have Tommy Smith as my coach, a hero from the 1968 Olympics. Tommy taught me not only how to be an elite athlete on the track but how to be a fierce competitor off the track as well. I flourished under his training, became a track and field All-American and was headed to off to USC when I blew out my knee. Needless to say, that brought my college and track aspirations to a screeching halt.

Having nothing but time on my hands, I was having lunch with John Blas one day when the subject of the now iconic Michael Jordan “Failure” commercial came up. He told me that to make that commercial was someone’s job. I wanted THAT job. He also told me that to be taken seriously, I needed a degree from an art school. He recommended that I attend the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, which I was fortunate enough to get into.

While attending ACCD, I worked at Buena Vista motion pictures, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Immediately upon graduation, Saatchi LA offered me a job, which I gladly took, wanting to get out from under my crushing student loans. Nothing against Disney. I love the Mouse, but he’s not known for paying lavish salaries.

During my tenure at Saatchi, I've created the highest rated Super Bowl spots for Toyota, helped land the LA Chargers account and launched the first global Olympic campaign for Toyota. While I'm not sprinting around a track these days, I am still fueled by the same competitive energy. So what lesson sticks with me through all this? It’s that the urge to excel is infinitely more robust than the human knee.

CLIENTS

Toyota · Los Angeles Chargers · Asics · Square Enix · Disney · Fox · Lucasfilm · Sony

The Talented People I’ve Worked With

John Blas, Juan Bobillo, Evan Brown, Nick Cade, Mark Carolan, Fabio Cost, Marc d’Avignon, Amir Farhang, Erich Funke, Donnell Johnson, Patrick Maravilla, Jason Schragger, Kevin Tenglin, Shannon Wilch, Scott Wilson, Emily Yurko