Christopher Owens

About Christopher Owens

Christopher is a strategist-educator-drummer-and-mixed-media-storyteller who loves hyphens. He\'s a midwesterner by birth, raised in Ohio, where he dreamt of becoming a cartoonist, architect, and drummer (in that order.) His desire to live and learn around creative misfits drew him to the UNT in Denton, where he earned a BFA in Language and Communications. After college, he hit the road playing drums in an award-winning third-wave two-tone ska band. Who wouldn\'t? After four memorable years with the band, he sold out and entered the dragon of advertising. In the late \'90s, he cut his teeth at Gleason/Calise on Web 1.0 brands before being accepted into the renowned Miami Ad School for their second annual Account Planning Boot Camp. He was trained by the world\'s premier account planners and graduated top of his class.Since joining the independent agency in his Effie award-winning strategic guidance has helped realize the potential of brands across the automotive, luxury appliances, spirits, retail, beverage, entertainment, telecommunications, food service, eyewear, ultra-luxury hospitality, higher education, and media sectors. For five years, Christopher also served as liaison with an independent partner agency in Tokyo, overseeing strategist training and the rollout of a new brand definition capability.In December 2020, Christopher accepted the opportunity to join agency leadership in guiding its re-founding as TRG, an ongoing reimagining of the former Richards Group into a creativity collective whose vision is to make memories that move markets.Over the past 25 years, Christopher has become a sought-after educator with institutions like SMU, VCU Brandcenter, UT Austin, IAAS, Ad2, and the Strategy Pints community in Berlin. He has led clinics, spoken on mainstage panels, and served as Head Juror at the 2024 4A’s Jay Chiat Strategy Awards. He’s especially proud to be the first Miami Ad School Strategy Bootcamp grad invited back as faculty in 2007, a 20-year commitment that now includes leading the Bootcamp program and teaching virtually to hundreds of students worldwide. In 2025, he was named Educator of the Year by the AAF, the first non-university practitioner to earn the title.As of Spring 2025, he’s an empty-nester with two creative adult daughters. Meanwhile, he still performs with fellow veterans from the NTX and NYC music scenes, Mike Rudnicki (Baboon) and Sean Donovan (Calla), in an indie/kraut/dub rock project aptly titled The Sudden Walk.

Experience

1. Executive Strategy Director

   TRG

   Mar 2026 — Present · Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, US

Education

• University of North Texas

  Bachelor of Fine Arts - BFA, Language/Communications

  1990 — 1995

• Master of Advertising Effectiveness

  Certified with Distinction, Advertising

• Ehrenberg-Bass Institute

  How Brands Grow Live! for Executives, Marketing

• Miami Ad School

  Account Planning Boot Camp (original precursor to current Strategic Planning Boot Camp), Account Planning / Strategy