Open to intros

Open toFractional roles · Advisory boards · Consulting

DeShawn Carter

Former VP Brand · Cobalt & Co.

Brooklyn, NY, US

Brand and creative leader who turned challenger DTC brands into category names people actually remember.

21+ years experienceEnglish

Request a 15-min intro See ways to work

21yrs

Operating leadership

Senior roles

Areas of expertise

5.0★

From 2 endorsements

What DeShawn is known for

DeShawn Carter led brand and creative at Cobalt & Co., a men's grooming DTC brand, where his rebrand and creative strategy tripled aided awareness and helped grow the business to $130M before its acquisition. He is a brand storyteller with a performance-marketer's discipline, having built in-house creative teams that cut production costs 50% while lifting ad creative win rates. Before Cobalt he ran brand at Strato Athletics, launching a campaign that earned 80M organic impressions on a fraction of the planned budget. DeShawn advises consumer founders on brand identity, creative strategy, and building a creative engine that can feed paid channels at scale. He believes brand and growth are the same job and refuses to let one starve the other.

Expertise & sectors

Core expertise

Brand Strategy Creative Strategy Positioning DTC Marketing Content

Sectors

Consumer Retail

Experience

VP Brand · Cobalt & Co.

2017 — 2024

Director of Brand & Creative · Strato Athletics

2011 — 2017

Ways to work together

15-min intro

Free

A quick fit check on your situation. DeShawn replies directly.

Request intro

Brand & creative audit

$4,500 · 90 min

A teardown of your brand identity and ad creative with a clear creative direction.

Discuss

What people say about DeShawn

“DeShawn built us a creative engine that finally let paid scale without the brand falling apart.”

MQMara Quinn · Founder, Northbound Goods

“He gave us a brand voice people quote back to us. That's rare.”

Isaiah Frank · CEO, Daybreak Coffee

Advisors with similar expertise

View all advisors →

Danielle Pruitt

Former CMO · Halcyon Outdoors

Outdoor-retail CMO who built a $0 brand into a $240M cult favorite, leading on category creation and brand.

Brand StrategyCategory CreationPricingConsumer

Rosa Delgado

Former CMO · Verano Beverages

Consumer CMO behind two nine-figure CPG brands; advises on brand building, retail, and demand creation.

Brand BuildingDemand CreationRetail & Shopper MarketingConsumer

Victor Reyes

Former CMO · Pacific Crest Financial

Financial-services CMO who modernized legacy brands and built data-driven acquisition for regulated markets.

Brand StrategyCustomer AcquisitionLifecycle MarketingFintech

Yuki Tanaka

Former VP Product Marketing · Nimbus Data

Product marketing leader who launched three category-defining B2B platforms and built pricing that stuck.

Product MarketingPositioningPricing & PackagingSaaS

Omar Haddad

Former Controller · Sandalwood Retail Group

Hands-on controller who cleaned up the books at three companies and got each one audit-ready and acquisition-ready.

Technical accountingAudit readinessERP implementationRetail

Amira Haddad

Former Head of Talent · Cobalt & Reach

Builds recruiting engines that hire fast without lowering the bar; scaled a team through 400 hires in a year at 38-day…

Talent AcquisitionExecutive SearchInterview Process DesignTechnology

Want a profile like this getting you hired?

Put yours up in minutes — built to get found by the companies hiring fractional and advisory leaders, just like DeShawn's.

Join the Roster

Qualified, paid engagements · You keep 90% of every booking