Available for Creative Director roles — 2026

MatteoStanzani

Creative Director Editor Storyteller

Portrait of Matteo Stanzani
Brooklyn, NY 40.6782° N

Modena → Brooklyn. 25 years directing brand stories for the companies people know — Ferrari, Ferrero, Tesla, NIO, Nike, Amazon, Marvel, Disney, LEGO, ESPN. I’ve led crews of 25 and I still cut short films alone in Premiere. That range is the whole point.

25 YearsBrand storytelling
32 MarketsPlatforms built in 32 languages
Teams of 25+Led at peak · still cuts alone
AI-nativeHuman-first
002Who I am Brooklyn, NY

A Creative Director who still makes the work.

I grew up in Modena, Italy — the same city that made Ferrari cars, balsamic vinegar, Pavarotti and Massimo Bottura. That’s the tradition I was raised in: craft as its own reward. Do it with your hands. Do it until it’s right.

I built Magic-Kinder.com for Ferrero into one of the world’s largest children’s content platforms — 32 languages, 32 markets, 500+ published pieces — and I spent fourteen years directing branded content inside Marvel and Disney’s licensed-IP governance framework — the tightest rights-review environment in entertainment.

Innovative Transmedia is my studio — my own extension. For big animation productions I bring in trusted external teams. For everything else, it’s me.

Heart · Mind · Hands · Always in control. Modena → Brooklyn
25 Yrs Brand Storytelling
Hands-On · AI-Native · Human-First
003What I do Three roles / one pair of hands

Three roles. One pair of hands.

004Selected work 2024 — 2026

Recent brand stories.

Six pieces. Two campaigns. Two AI films. One brand ecosystem. One book that became a short.

005AI is inside every workflow I run 16 tools / daily

Every AI tool on the market. None of them in charge.

I collaborate with Google Labs on tools that aren’t public yet. Claude runs beside me every day. ComfyUI and LM Studio run locally on my own machine. And I’ve been in the Adobe stack since 1996 — long enough to know the difference between a tool that speeds up craft and a tool that replaces the thinking.

daily stack — 16 active
Adobe Firefly Google Flow Google Veo Google Omni ComfyUI Runway Kling Higgsfield ElevenLabs Nano Banana Midjourney Claude ChatGPT LM Studio Hermes Agent Obsidian

“My heart, my mind and my hands are always in control, from start to finish.”

006The human half Why it still matters

The half that doesn’t automate.

Every year the tools get faster and the technical half of this job gets cheaper. What doesn’t get cheaper is knowing which idea is worth making, reading a room, holding a team together through a bad week, and having the taste to stop. The World Economic Forum keeps ranking those the most valuable skills on the market — not because they’re nice, because they’re the ones that don’t scale.

~40%of the skills a job requires will change by 2030
5 of 5top core skills employers name are human, not technical
70%of companies rank analytical thinking essential
01Creative thinking

Twenty-five years of starting at a blank page and finishing at a delivered cut. Concept, deck, direction, edit — on Ferrari SF-26, on Amazon × FIFA 26, on a children’s book I wrote and drew myself.

02Resilience, flexibility & agility

Modena to Brooklyn. Cel to digital to AI-native. Three industry-wide resets in one career, and the work kept shipping through every one of them.

03Leadership & social influence

Matrixed crews of 8–15, scaling past 25 on flagship deliveries — writers, artists, animators, VFX, sound, edit. Keynote at X Media Lab Switzerland. Visiting faculty at Italian design and animation academies.

04Motivation & self-awareness

I know precisely what I do better than anyone in the room, and precisely when to bring someone in. Innovative Transmedia is my own extension — for big animation productions I bring in trusted external teams, and I say so.

05Empathy & active listening

Every brand story starts with hearing the thing the client can’t quite say yet. Ten continuous years inside one client’s business — Piana Technology — is what that buys you.

06Curiosity & lifelong learning

In the Adobe stack since 1996. Collaborating with Google Labs on tools that aren’t public yet. The software changes every eighteen months; the appetite doesn’t.

Machines calculate. Humans decide which way to point.

Skill rankings & figures: World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025

007Brands I’ve directed for Selected

25 years. These brands.

Ferrari Ferrero Tesla NIO Nike Serta Simmons Bedding Amazon American Express Adobe Marvel Disney LEGO Hasbro Toyota NFL DoorDash ESPN Adidas Sony PlayStation RAI Italian TV

Selected from 25 years of client work · Full list on the About page

008Let’s make something Replies within 24h

Have a story that needs making?

Full-time roles, freelance briefs, collaboration ideas — I’d love to hear from you.

matteo@innovativetransmedia.com

Modena → Brooklyn. Craft as its own reward.