Escape Velocity with Tracey Halvorsen: Where Strategy Meets the Unexpected

Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Biweekly

Escape Velocity is a podcast about brand, growth, and creative leadership in complicated industries. Hosted by Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, a Baltimore brand, digital, and communications agency working with higher education, cultural institutions, nonprofits, and complex growth brands. Each episode features strategists, founders, and creative leaders on what it actually takes to build brands, lead teams, and grow in complicated markets. helloadeo.com

  1. 2d ago

    Carol Keese - A CMO Says Marketing Isn't the Fix

    Carol Keese has spent her career marketing trust in places where trust is the whole game: Johns Hopkins Medicine, Children's National, the University of Virginia, and now the University of Oregon. So when a CMO stands up and says marketing isn't the fix, it's worth listening. That's the argument at the center of this conversation. Carol wrote a piece in Inside Higher Ed called "Higher Education Was Built on Scarcity. That Model Is Breaking," and it cuts against her own profession. Her point: higher ed has spent two decades answering a value problem with better messaging, and the market stopped believing the message a long time ago. The work sits upstream, in the cost, the design, and the outcomes of the product. Not in the words on the homepage. Tracey and Carol get into where that leaves marketers, why medicine can't prestige-signal the way higher ed does, and what breaks when a thousand-year-old model built for the elite tries to serve everyone. Then the shift that's already here: a 17-year-old asks an AI about your school long before they ever reach your homepage, and whatever the AI says back is the new first impression. Carol calls it the first campus visit. The website is the second. Her team is rebuilding Oregon's site around that, writing for the machine that reads it first, which means short answers and FAQs instead of the long narrative pages the sector spent a decade building. She also argues that higher ed should stop walling itself off and act more like a consumer brand. Her proof point: Oregon's Grateful Ducks collaboration with Nike and the Grateful Dead, built on the band's real history in Eugene and Nike's roots at the university. It sold out fast and earned national coverage from Rolling Stone, GQ, Complex, USA Today, and Sports Business Journal. Authentic cultural relevance, not prestige signaling. It's a candid, specific, occasionally funny conversation about a sector under real pressure, from someone who loves it enough to tell it the truth. In this episode: Why "fix it with marketing" became higher ed's default, and why it stopped workingThe scarcity model: built for permanence, built for the elite, never built for scaleWhat medicine gets right that higher ed doesn't, and why outcomes are the differenceUVA vs. Oregon: professionalizing a legacy brand vs. defining a value proposition from scratchAI as the first campus visit, and how that reshapes web content, FAQs, and earned mediaWhy rankings are a lagging indicator and what to measure instead (real-time sentiment)The CMO seat: getting it is not the point, what you do with it isGetting lighter: delight as a marketing strategy for institutions that take themselves too seriouslyActing like a consumer brand: the Grateful Ducks collab, and why authentic cultural relevance beats prestige signalingAbout the guest Carol Keese is VP of University Communications and CMO at the University of Oregon. Before Oregon, she led brand and marketing at the University of Virginia through a bicentennial, a new president, and a capital campaign. Earlier in her career she held marketing leadership roles at Johns Hopkins Medicine and Children's National. She has presented on higher ed marketing at the AMA, the AAU, and SXSWEdu. Links Carol Keese on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolpkeeseCarol's Inside Higher Ed article, "Higher Education Was Built on Scarcity. That Model Is Breaking": https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/call-action/2026/05/04/higher-ed-was-built-scarcity-model-breakingBlanding: https://blandingaudit.netlify.app

  2. Jun 1

    Empathy Is Not a Soft Skill: Jaime Hunt on Higher Ed Marketing, AI, and Solving What Matters

    Jaime Hunt has spent more than two decades inside higher education marketing, including nine years as a chief marketing officer at three very different institutions. Now she is the founder of Solve Higher Ed Marketing, author of Heart Over Hype: Transforming Higher Ed Marketing with Empathy, instructor at West Virginia University, and host of Confessions of a Higher Ed CMO.   In this episode of Escape Velocity, Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, talks with Jaime about what higher ed marketing looks like from the inside, why empathy is not the opposite of accountability, and how colleges and universities can stop reaching for tactics and start solving the real problems. They get into Jaime’s shift from journalism to higher ed, what changed when she launched her own firm, and why entrepreneurship made her feel “ungovernable” in the best possible way. They also talk about the evolution of brand and marketing inside higher ed, why internal audiences matter as much as external polish, how agencies can better collaborate with campus teams, and why marketing work has to connect to measurable institutional goals. The conversation also moves into the pressure higher ed is under right now: the enrollment cliff, shrinking budgets, AI panic, risk aversion, institutional sameness, and the danger of mistaking shiny objects for innovation. Jaime makes the case for curiosity, empathy, and problem-solving as essential leadership disciplines, especially in a moment when campuses need sharper strategy, stronger alignment, and more human-centered marketing. This is a conversation for higher ed marketers, enrollment leaders, agency partners, presidents, CMOs, and anyone trying to build work that is more useful, more honest, and less driven by hype. Guest links:Solve Higher Ed MarketingHeart Over Hype: Transforming Higher Ed Marketing with EmpathyConfessions of a Higher Ed CMOJaime Hunt on LinkedIn Escape Velocity is hosted by Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, a brand, digital, and communications agency based in Baltimore working with higher education, cultural institutions, nonprofits, and complex growth brands. Learn more at helloadeo.com. Topics: higher ed marketing, enrollment marketing, higher education branding, empathy-driven marketing, higher ed CMO, brand strategy, AI in higher education, higher ed enrollment cliff, campus communications, student journey mapping, marketing leadership, internal change management, Solve Higher Ed Marketing, Heart Over Hype, Jaime Hunt.

  3. Apr 29

    Alia Poonawala on Building a Film Like a Startup Raise: A Johns Hopkins Executive, a Sundance Actor, and the Cost of Bifurcating Yourself

    Alia Poonawala is the founding executive director of Hire Hopkins at Johns Hopkins University and a Sundance-premiering actor. For years she kept the institutional executive and the artist in separate rooms. Then she raised $50K, hired a production team in Italy, and shot her own short film in two months, running it like the partnership deals she's closed for years at companies like Facebook and Uber. In this Escape Velocity episode, Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, and Alia get into design thinking as her operating framework, working backwards from the headline, the 80/20 split between business and creative work, and what changes when an autoimmune diagnosis forces a leader to stop overworking. For leaders who are also makers.

  4. Apr 20

    Curiosity as a Career Strategy: Diane Querey on 20 Years of Digital Transformation at World Wildlife Fund

    What does 20 years of leading digital at one of the world's most recognized nonprofits teach you about curiosity, change, and AI? In this episode of Escape Velocity, Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, sits down with Diane Querey, Vice President of Digital Platforms at World Wildlife Fund. The two first met in 2007 through Foursquare, back when checking in on an app counted as a social act. Nearly two decades later, they unpack what it takes to lead digital transformation at a mission-driven organization through three major shifts: the early web, the move to responsive design, and now AI. Diane led the WWF Together app that won a 2013 Apple Design Award, the Apps for Earth partnership with Apple that raised $8 million for conservation, and WWF's collaboration with Netflix on Our Planet. She also shares the inside story of WWF's recent website relaunch, a multi-year, 6,000-page migration that forced her team to rethink process, vendors, and the role of AI in their day-to-day work. She explains how her team is actually using AI (metadata, alt tags, thought partnership) and where they draw the hard line (original content writing stays human). She unpacks her framework for what separates order takers from strategic partners, and why curiosity is now the defining trait she looks for when hiring. Tracey and Diane also get into: The "compression to the middle" problem when teams over-rely on AI Why AI slop is flooding every platform and how to cut through it Raising kids who can tell the difference between real and generated content Reinvention, transition, and the pressure on women to constantly become someone new Curiosity, creativity, and caution as the three disciplines for working in this moment This is a conversation for digital leaders, nonprofit strategists, creative directors, and anyone trying to figure out how to lead a team through real change without losing the human at the center of the work. Escape Velocity is hosted by Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, a brand, digital, and communications agency based in Baltimore working with higher education, cultural institutions, nonprofits, and complex growth brands. Learn more at helloadeo.com. Topics: digital transformation, nonprofit technology, World Wildlife Fund, WWF, Apple Design Award, Apps for Earth, Our Planet Netflix, AI in the workplace, website redesign, creative leadership, curiosity and career, strategic thinking, order takers vs strategic partners, AI slop, digital teams, mission-driven work.

  5. Mar 25

    Building Cultures Where People and Ideas Thrive

    In this episode of Escape Velocity, Tracey sits down with Adrienne Cooper to explore what it really takes to build organizations where people can do their best work. Adrienne shares her unconventional path from TV news producer to Allstate leader to founder of her own consultancy, and explains how that journey shaped her approach to culture, leadership, and organizational design. They get into mission, vision, and values as practical operating tools, not corporate wallpaper. Adrienne also breaks down how she uses LEGO Serious Play to surface hidden perspectives, create alignment, and make sure every voice in the room is heard. The conversation also tackles flow state, delegation, motivation, neurodivergence, leadership readiness, and why diverse lived experience leads to better problem-solving. They close on the shifting relationship between work and AI, and what human judgment, creativity, and clarity of purpose will matter even more as automation rises. This is a sharp conversation about building companies, teams, and careers with more intention.

  6. Mar 16

    Escape Velocity | Dayana "Day" Kibilds: Why Higher Ed Language Fails the Students It Claims to Serve

    Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, talks with Dayana "Day" Kibilds, VP of Strategy at Ologie and author of Mailed It, about the language problem hiding in plain sight across higher education. Day has worked in-house in admissions and now leads strategy for dozens of institutions worldwide. Together they dig into why financial aid pages read like legal documents (paste yours into the Hemingway app and watch it turn red), how Ologie's work with Amherst College created a home-delivered guide that reached first-gen students nobody else was reaching, and why creative testing almost always kills the boldest work. They also get into the agency-institution dynamic: why schools think they're more unique than they are, why "community" isn't a differentiator, what happens when a president swoops in at the 11th hour, and what the structural future of higher ed looks like as AI reshapes everything. Escape Velocity is hosted by Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, a creative and digital agency working with higher education and complex growth brands. Link to the book - "Mailed It!" Link to Day's Newsletter: You Ask Day Answers

  7. Mar 6

    Why Brand Messaging Now Matters More Than Your Website | Yianni Mathioudakis and Monica Sanchez of DEEO

    Your website isn't the thing anymore. Your brand message is. And most companies still have it backwards. Yianni Mathioudakis and Monica Sanchez run DEEO, a two-person design studio that made a gutsy call early on: turn down the wrong clients, say the quiet parts out loud about money, and bet everything on authentic connection over algorithm-chasing content. In this conversation, we get into what's actually changing right now for creative studios and the brands they serve. AI is flooding every platform with content. Google is summarizing your website before anyone clicks on it. And the old playbook of "build a nice website and they will come" is dead. We talk about why brand strategy is becoming the most important investment a company can make. How DEEO rebuilt their entire business development approach after getting ghosted. Why "content for connection, not for the algorithm" became their breakthrough philosophy. And what generative UI could mean for the future of branded web experiences. We also get into the real stuff: how to talk about money with clients without it being weird, why saying no to a big project was the scariest and smartest move they made, and why taste and curation are the irreplaceable human skills in an AI world. Plus a new Escape Velocity tradition: guests now leave a question for the next guest. Yianni and Monica's questions are worth the listen alone. If you run a creative business, work in brand strategy, or care about where design and AI are headed, this one's for you. Topics: brand strategy, creative studio growth, AI and branding, value-based pricing, client red flags, generative UI, web design future, authentic marketing, small agency business development

  8. 12/29/2025

    Designing Resilience: Creativity, Leadership, and Building Optionality in Uncertain Times - Sabrina Depestre

    In this episode of Escape Velocity Podcast, Tracey Halvorsen sits down with Sabrina Depestre, Senior Director of Enrollment Marketing at Maryland Institute College of Art, to explore how creativity, leadership, and resilience actually develop in the real world. This is a conversation about experience design disguised as a career story. From shaping fan experiences at the Miami Heat to modernizing marketing inside higher education, Sabrina reveals how creative strategy works when culture, systems, and human behavior collide. Together, Tracey and Sabrina unpack burnout as a structural issue, not a personal flaw; curiosity as a leadership discipline; and why side projects, portfolio careers, and creative sovereignty matter more than ever in an AI-accelerated world. They also confront the realities facing creative education today—from generative AI to shifting economic models—and why embracing change with ethics, clarity, and evidence beats both fear and hype. This episode is for leaders, creatives, strategists, and educators who want to understand: How creativity functions inside complex systems Why experience design is the future of brand and leadership How to build resilience without burning everything down What it actually means to stay curious in unstable times

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Escape Velocity is a podcast about brand, growth, and creative leadership in complicated industries. Hosted by Tracey Halvorsen, CEO of adeo, a Baltimore brand, digital, and communications agency working with higher education, cultural institutions, nonprofits, and complex growth brands. Each episode features strategists, founders, and creative leaders on what it actually takes to build brands, lead teams, and grow in complicated markets. helloadeo.com

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