We’re growing. Learn how you can join our team. Review our current job openings.

Michael Margolis, CEO & founder

Michael is a trusted advisor to CEOs and CMOs with a world-changing story to tell. As the son of an inventor and artist, Michael learned at an early age that ideas live and grow only when others can see what you see. That’s the power of storytelling. As a misfit geek for much of his life, Michael turned to storytelling for survival. As they say, you teach what you need to learn most.

Michael pioneered the practice of business storytelling long before the trend of today. For the last decade, Michael has developed frameworks that take the traditional notions of storytelling and re-invents them in the context of innovation, marketing, branding, culture, and social media. From 2002-2009, Michael built one of the world’s first agencies devoted to strategic storytelling – working on message architecture for clients like NASA, Ernst & Young, Marriott, and YWCA. Today, he’s at the forefront of the business storytelling movement. In addition to Fortune 500 advisory work and training, Michael oversees an educational platform with online ecourses, virtual conferences, and live workshops that advance the field.

Michael’s book, Believe Me: A Storytelling Manifesto for Change-Makers and Innovators, has been read by over 20,000 people and endorsed by leaders from Saatchi & Saatchi, Ashoka, and IBM. Michael began his career as a social entrepreneur, co-founding two Digital Divide nonprofits – before the age of 23. His work and ideas have been featured in Fast Company, BrandWeek, and Storytelling Magazine, among other places. Michael was born in Ohio, grew up in Switzerland & Los Angeles, and now considers New York City home. Michael is left-handed, color blind, and eats more chocolate than the average human.

Tristan Esteibar, Director of Operations

Tristan is our resident process expert. He oversees project management, human resources, and other operational core systems. Previously, Tristan was the Head of Operations and Human Resources for ClearMetrics, a software development and technology incubator, overseeing its growth from 5 to 30 employees.

When Tristan was a child he was fascinated by household appliance manuals, aviation checklists, and the owner’s guide to his dad’s Honda. This curiosity translated to a career in Operations – creating organizational discipline, harmony through structure, and the implementation of routines that lead to better collaboration and results. His experience in the tech, software, and start-up industries help build scalable systems and processes. He’s learned that no single algorithm exists in solving an organizational challenge. Rather, it is synergy, collaboration, and constant tweaking that create the most efficient and favorable results. Tristan has applied his mojo and approach to projects for Twinlab, Woody Allen, and Chevron, amongst others.

When Tristan is away from his desk and not working on flow charts, checklists, or brainstorming ideas with his colleagues, you’ll find him logging close to 200,000 miles a year traveling. Exploring new cities, eating, learning about new cultures, and building lasting relationships with those he meets along the way are all part of what Tristan considers foundations in paving the way for personal growth.

Christine de la Garza, Director of Client Services

Christine is a seasoned brand strategist & integrated marketing architect with 20 years experience managing and directing 360° communications initiatives for iconic brands, startups and growing businesses. She has previously worked at Ogilvy & Mather, Spike/DDB, The Vidal Partnership, and Studio Lekker.

Christine was raised in a colorful Tex-Mex family with a cast of telenovella characters ― priests, politicians, poets, vaqueros & entrepreneurs. Christine believes that engaging and successful marketing is part art, part science and all human. She brings a free-flow, intuitive, brainstorming approach to the development of strategic initiatives. The end results are grounded in common sense, customer truth and competitive insight.

Hailing from Austin and the original tribe that launched SXSW, she cut her teeth in technology marketing at an innovative R&D consortium, where an ever-curious appetite for emerging technology was ignited. As such, she stays immersed in tech, trends, media & mentoring startups.

Kristina Drury, Director, Innovation Design

Kristina provides a design perspective to the process of social innovation. Whether she’s producing an event, conceptualizing an infographic, or facilitating participatory design, Kristina brings harmony and structure to everything she graces. At Get Storied, she manages a range of engagements for Celebration Health, California State Library, Davidsohn, and Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership.

She is the founder and creative director of TYTHEdesign, a design consulting firm, that collaborates with nonprofits and social ventures to help them increase the impact of their work. Previously, Kristina has worked as the NYC chapter head for Project H Design, a charitable organization focusing on product design for social change. While there, she was one of the lead designers of Learning Landscape, an educational active-learning playground installed all over the world, from Tanzania to Mexico, and also featured at Cooper Hewitt’s 2010 National Design Triennial. Additionally, Kristina has also served as the Assistant Director of the Pratt Design Incubator, working with clients such as UNESCO, WestElm, and Starbucks, as well as with a series of small non-profits and entrepreneurs.

Kristina’s design work has been published in a variety of sources, most notably in 2009’s ‘Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People’ by Emily Pilloton. She is a Master Teacher at Skillshare and has taught in many capacities including Design Initiative for Community Empowerment (DICE) and Sweat Equity Enterprises (SEE). Kristina has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from McGill University and a Master’s degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute.

Jodi Bepler, Operations Manager

An organizer at heart, Jodi oversees project management and support systems at Get Storied. Jodi also manages our Story University and Reinvention Summit virtual conference. Jodi has spent the last decade as an operations ninja working with a mix of companies including tech and design start-ups. As a recovering geek, she enjoys to research new technologies and implement the latest systems and gadgets. She thrives on checklists and keeping our multiple projects on task. Jodi is the happy voice on the other end of the line, even when wrestling with web monkeys and auto-bot invasions.

A Midwestern girl through and through, Jodi loves spending time on Lake Michigan – whether soaking up the sun, or in pursuit of a 28 lb Salmon. Jodi lives just miles from the campus of Michigan State University, where she studied journalism. Come football and basketball season, her legendary tailgate menus are the talk of the town.

Kristen DeAngelis, Coordination & Research

Like a rolling stone, Kristen gathers no moss. With a natural zest for travel and a curiosity of other cultures, it was only a matter of time that she hit the road to experience life outside her Ohio matrix. Each place she visited, she realized that every single person had a unique story to tell. They only needed a compassionate ear to listen. As an avid writer and animated storyteller, Kristen loves words. She won the spelling bee in 7th grade, and ever since then she was hooked. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication, Kristen helps out with client outreach, research and business development, and operational tasks, all supporting the goal of spreading the power of storytelling. Kristen thrives on doing yoga outdoors, filling her brain with knowledge, devouring large salads, and meeting quirky people.

Jeanne Hurlbert, Sociologist

Jeanne Hurlbert, PhD is an expert in survey research, social networks, and social media. Jeanne has served on the faculty of Louisiana State University for more than 20 years, where she taught social science and marketing students how to read people’s minds with surveys and directed the Louisiana Population Data Center Survey Research Lab. She has used survey research to study how individuals’ social networks affect such things as job-finding, job satisfaction, access to social support, and health. This research has been funded by such agencies as the National Science Foundation and published in top social science and health journals.

She is co-founder of MySurveyExpert.com, which helps organizations better understand their audience’s world, perceptions, and thinking. Her clients include The Tony Robbins Companies, John Assaraf, Joe Polish, Andy Jenkins, Traffic Geyser, and three New York Times bestselling authors. She has been featured or quoted in such media as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The LA Times, USA Today, Oprah and Friends, Forbes.com, and The History Channel. She earned her MA and PhD degrees at the University of North Carolina.

Creative Network

We collaborate with a growing network of world-class creatives who share our passion for the power of transformational storytelling. This includes more than 50 top designers, filmmakers, copywriters, web developers, and content marketers. If you’d like to explore joining our creative network, email collaborate at getstoried.com