Alum
Lisa Weinstein
From 20 years in media agencies to company CEO
Lisa Weinstein, BAJ’96, CEO of brick&batten
"The journalism school, and The Media School today of course, would have companies, in this case agencies, come to campus and recruit. That’s how I ended up starting out of school at Leo Burnett Media. The first 20 years of my career were in the media agency world.
It was a very different world. This was before the first digital ad. I grew, I learned about the business, I loved the business. I continued to move up from within the media side to general management to running a media agency office. I loved when I started running an office, understanding how do we make money as an agency and how can we add value to our clients in a way that’s also good for business.
What we say is ‘spirit of a startup, soul of a powerhouse.’ One of the ways big companies can continue to innovate is to acquire other companies. That brings in new talent, sometimes it brings in technology, new thinking, new ideas. I found this new passion for building and growing businesses and commercialization of new ideas that led me down the path I’ve been on for about the past eight years.
So I left the agency world and ended up running a company that was run by a private equity firm, where we ended up acquiring a number of companies and putting them together in the media space. I then went and ran a very small publishing business that was venture-backed. I then took on another company that was venture-backed that was a lot bigger.
I then embarked on my latest venture, which is a totally different business. I’m running a company called brick&batten. The company was started by my freshman year IU roommate. We didn’t even really keep in touch, but I stumbled upon the fact that she had started the company. We were moving after 26 years in Chicago to Indianapolis; we bought a house, we’re redoing it, and I was a customer. And all of the skills that I’ve learned over the years from running companies, leading companies, people, teams, operations, all of that is important. Critically, everything I learned and know from my whole career in media around growing and really understanding content and media and conversion—practical business understanding of media.
There’s media for altruistic sake, but media is also a business. And I hope if I can bring anything to what we do, I hope that there’s a real energy around not just thinking about media on its own but the role it plays in the business world and as a real accelerant in the marketplace."
Written By Kara Williams
Photos By Izzy Myszak