Episode Details

Dan Onufrishyn is Director of the Creative Leadership Program at Miami Ad School. But before the title, before the CV, before the impressive brand list, there is something simpler running through this conversation: generosity.

We start on a nature walk with green tea in a thermos. Mountains, sketchbooks, laptops, stream-of-consciousness doodles. It quickly becomes clear that Dan thinks in systems, in patterns, in long arcs. His career moves the same way. From Denver to New York. From School of Visual Arts to ESPN. From broadcast graphics in Times Square to J.P. Morgan, WPP, healthcare consultancies, sports management, data science. In-house. Agency. Freelance. Back again.

It is a career built on curiosity.

Dan talks about how every industry has its own culture and language. Entertainment runs like entertainment. Finance runs like finance. Healthcare runs like healthcare. As creatives, we get immersed inside those systems. We learn to observe them. Translate them. Shape them.

But the heart of this episode is leadership.Dan speaks openly about the shift from making artefacts to leading people. About the shock of stepping into responsibility without a manual. About the importance of alignment before momentum. About lessons learned the hard way when executive buy-in came too late.

And then we get to Miami Ad School.

His move into teaching happened organically. A partnership event. A conversation. A follow-up. Now he’s shaping the next generation of creative directors, not just teaching craft, but teaching relationship-building, empathy, accountability, and how to “do the right thing well.” It is clear this is where his generosity lands most powerfully.We also talk about AI. The speed of change. The myth of the machine being smarter than it is. Dan’s view is grounded and pragmatic: right now, it replicates processes. It does not replace judgment. The creative edge still belongs to the human who decides what is funny, what is meaningful, what resonates.

There’s humour here. There’s reflection. There’s humility. And there’s a quiet confidence that comes from someone who has explored widely, then chosen to focus narrowly.When I ask him what he’d tell his 15-year-old self, he says: “You’re doing the right thing.”When I ask him what his retired self would say now, he says: “Keep going.”

And when I ask whether he is still awaiting approval…… well, you’ll just have to listen to and see.

In this episode, we cover:

• Moving from Denver to New York to study branding at SVA

• Working full-time while studying, and the discipline that shaped him

• Broadcast design at ESPN and seeing your work in Times Square

Transitioning into finance at J.P. Morgan and learning institutional culture

• Agency life at WPP and consultancy leadership across industries

• Why in-house focus can create deeper impact

• The importance of executive alignment before scaling creative work

• Lessons from projects that didn’t go to plan

• Why nature and mountains are his reset button

• The shift from artefacts to people in creative leadership

• Teaching relationship-keeping and accountability at Miami Ad School

• AI, process replication, and why judgment still belongs to humans

• Specialisation as a survival strategy in a changing market• What he’d tell his 15-year-old self

This one is thoughtful, measured, and quietly generous.

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This is Awaiting Approval. The globally charting design podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.

Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.

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