merit
Jordan Warren
Fractional CEO
Weirdo
By his own admission, Jordan Warren doesn’t usually chase the “people awards” that are a staple of our industry. But the Hall of Fame felt different because, while you’ll receive plenty of nominations from CEOs who have launched an agency, there aren’t many who can say they’ve successfully launched three.
For over 25 years, Jordan has championed the independent agency, founding and leading three distinctly different creative shops: Eleven, Argonaut, and TBD (yes, that really is the agency’s name).
Each time Jordan launched an agency, it wasn’t to follow a trend—it was to fill a gap the industry hadn’t yet noticed. He looked at where clients’ needs were shifting, found the white space, and built something new to meet the moment. The evolution of his agencies tells the story of how indie creativity has adapted and led across eras.
Eleven (1999)
Eleven was born in the chaos of the dot-com boom, when tech startups were popping up overnight and racing to market. These companies needed everything at once—positioning, naming, logos, identity, websites, marketing materials, advertising—and they needed it in weeks, not months. Traditional agencies were too slow, too siloed, and too expensive to keep up.
As one of the first truly integrated shops, Eleven delivered branding, design, advertising, and digital all under one roof. One of its lasting success stories was Shutterfly, which Eleven helped launch from scratch—crafting everything from the brand identity to the site design to the packaging the photos were delivered in.
Argonaut (2012)
When Jordan founded Argonaut in 2012, agencies were still tethered to San Francisco office towers and hadn’t yet tapped into the power of being at Silicon Valley’s crossroads of creativity, technology, and innovation. Argonaut set out to change that—built to fuse timeless brand storytelling with the emerging possibilities of digital media.
That vision came to life with brands like Fitbit, which Argonaut helped transform from a niche tech gadget into a cultural movement that redefined how people thought about health and fitness.
TBD (2017)
Jordan launched TBD in a time before “purpose-led” had fully entered the industry zeitgeist. While most agencies were still chasing clicks and impressions, he saw that brands could build deeper, more lasting connections by standing for something meaningful. TBD was built on that belief—that creativity and conscience belong together.
The agency brought that vision to life with work like a pro bono bullying-prevention campaign for the Ad Council, global wellness initiatives with Nokia Health, and a worldwide Dole campaign focused on access to nutrition. Years before purpose-driven marketing became a buzzword, TBD was proving that independence and conviction could expand not just what brands sold, but what they meant to people.
Choosing the Road Less Corporate
While Jordan has shaped in-house teams at Apple and led work for global brands including IBM, Nike, Levi’s, Google, and AT&T, his focus now is squarely on independent agencies. As a fractional CEO, he gives emerging shops access to senior leadership they could never otherwise afford—helping them grow, compete, and carve out their place in the industry.
Jordan challenges industry “givens” and replaces them with working alternatives:
Scale ≠ Quality. He rejects the myth that only big networks deliver top talent. His model centers senior attention—founders and true decision-makers at the table—over layers and overhead that dilute craft and accountability.
“AOR is dead” → Lead Creative Partner. Instead of mimicking bloated agency-of-record structures, he reframes the role indies can play: a nimble lead that provides senior strategic stewardship, coordinates specialist rosters, and maintains creative consistency—without the baggage, politics, or expense.
People & Work First (the money follows). He flips shareholder-first logic. Decisions prioritize the work and the people who make it; financial performance is an outcome, not a north star. It’s a discipline that prevents burnout and protects ideas—now adopted by the founders he mentors.
Collaboration over cage matches. He pushes back on the holding-company habit of pitting shops against each other. His approach builds cooperative ecosystems—often via a fractional “C-suite” collective—so indies share senior expertise (ops, finance, PR, HR) only when they need it, at a scale they can sustain.
Hype-proof creativity. Rather than chasing every trend, he teaches utility-first adoption of new tech—what helps right now, with a plan for what’s next—so indies stay ahead without gimmicks.
The net effect: a playbook that lets independent agencies lead with seniority, operate with precision, and compete on their terms.
Jordan’s impact on the independent agency community comes from rewriting the rules of how agencies can operate. Where holding companies pit agencies against each other in zero-sum competition, Jordan modeled a collaborative, people-first approach that showed independence can unlock better outcomes for clients, talent, and creativity alike.
He built agencies where leaders had the discretion to make the right decisions—not for shareholders, but for the work and the people who created it. For Jordan, the hierarchy was always clear: the work and people come first, and if those are done right, the money will follow. That philosophy flipped the priorities of traditional networks, where financial performance comes first, and helped indies see that they could succeed on their own terms without burning out teams or compromising ideas.
By championing collaboration over competition and putting creativity and people at the center of the business model, Jordan has created a lasting framework for independent agencies. His legacy continues to inspire the next generation of indies to believe that independence isn’t just about ownership—it’s about the freedom to choose a better way of working.
Jordan’s indie spirit runs deeper than his résumé. He grew up surrounded by both entrepreneurship and creativity.
His father was an inventor and entrepreneur who ran his own mail-order business. As a child, Jordan packed boxes for a dime each, saving enough to buy his first bike—an early lesson in the grit and reward of building something yourself.
His mother, from whom he credits his creative streak, modeled for Studebaker and early color television promotions before becoming a super (a non-singing role) in the opera, where she performed alongside legends like Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. At 92, she still proudly keeps a Ghostbusters II trading card featuring her cameo as a ghost emerging from the Titanic. Following in his mother’s footsteps, Jordan voiced the lead bully in the Peanuts movie Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown when he was in elementary school and appeared in Safeway commercials while in high school.
Jordan’s older brother carved his own path as a touring rock musician and Jordan developed a passion for rock photography shooting his brother in bands like Berlin, Warrant, Dio and Black Sabbath.
These influences—entrepreneurship, artistry, irreverence, and independence—don’t show up on his LinkedIn, but they shaped the mindset that has guided him through every agency he’s built and every indie he’s inspired.
Jordan’s commitment to independence was cemented during his time inside a large agency network. On paper, it was a turnaround success—he grew revenue, upgraded clients, and brought in marquee brands like Apple and Nike. But behind the spreadsheets, he saw how every decision was driven by financial priorities, politics, and internal turf wars rather than people, clients, or the work itself. Teams were split apart, clients left, and collaboration was sacrificed for control.
That experience made his values unmistakably clear: he wanted to build agencies where leaders had the discretion to prioritize people and creativity first, trusting that financial success would follow. It was the moment he realized independence wasn’t just a preference—it was a necessity if he wanted to create the kind of culture and work that lasted.
Direct Impact on Indie Founders
Jordan’s influence now extends well beyond the agencies he founded. After COVID, he began working with founders of independent agencies, many of whom had left larger networks to start businesses of their own.
As a fractional CEO, Jordan provides direct leadership and connects agencies to a network of experienced executives in business development, finance, recruiting, HR, operations, PR, and more. This flexible model gives small agencies access to senior guidance at a scale they can afford.
Founders such as Tori Nygren at Hogwash Studios and Ramaa Mosley at Adolescent Content credit him with everything from helping to shape their positioning, to strengthening their operations, and acting as a steady advisor through growth. His support has allowed new agencies to avoid the common pitfalls of scale while staying true to their independence. Jordan’s ripple effect is measured in the success of the many agencies he has helped to grow.
"Jordan has been a trusted advisor for Adolescent Content since 2018 and has helped us grow to become a full-service advertising agency. We brought the vision and the creative, and he has brought business strategy and planning, new business and operational expertise that has been essential to our growth."—Ramaa Mosely, founder and chief creative founder of Adolescent Content.
Redefining How Indies Compete
Jordan also pushes the wider indie community to rethink what “competing” with the networks really means. He argues that chasing the old agency of record model is a trap—bloated, inefficient, and designed to serve shareholders, not clients. Instead, he champions a new blueprint: independents as strategic, creative partners who deliver senior leadership without the layers, overhead, and politics of holding companies.
A Lasting Legacy
That vision has rippled across the indie community, inspiring founders to see independence not as a limitation but as their greatest strength. Jordan’s perspective reframes the role of indie agencies—proving they can lead client relationships, drive strategy, and set creative direction on their own terms.
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