In the B2B technology marketing world, complex software solutions and rapid AI advancements often drown out the human element making authentic communication more commodity than commonplace. Standing at the forefront of this industry transformation is Christina Nordquist Jacobs, Creative Director at MarketDesign Consulting.
With over fifteen years of specialized experience bridging the gap between technical IT concepts and human-centered brand positioning, Christina has established herself as a leading voice in executive thought leadership and strategic communications.
Christina’s path to creative leadership began long before her executive career taking root in an early childhood passion for writing imaginative stories and organizing mock classroom lessons. What seemed at the time like simple pastimes were actually the early signals of a lifelong calling: combining the art of storytelling with a natural educator’s instinct to make complex ideas accessible to everyone.
Today, as Creative Director at MarketDesign Consulting, she applies that foundational philosophy to help technology companies and IT leaders find their authentic voice, navigate the digital search landscape, and build lasting market trust.
From Storytelling to Strategy
That interest in writing and communication shaped her academic path to Le Moyne College, where she studied communications with a primary focus on written expression. Eager to bridge academic theory with real-world application, she secured a student internship at Annese & Associates, a respected family-owned IT services firm. Working directly under the guidance of Marketing Director Kara Rudy, what began as a single-semester internship quickly evolved into a decade-long career. That decade became an immersion in the B2B technology sector, giving her an insider’s view of technical infrastructure, channel distribution, and the complex buying journeys of mid-market and enterprise-level clients.
Under Kara Rudy’s mentorship, Christina Jacobs saw firsthand what it looks like when a leader actively invests in someone’s potential. Rather than limiting her to routine administrative tasks, her mentor provided room to experiment, make decisions, and take ownership of major marketing initiatives. The experience gave Christina a deep understanding of the IT landscape and showed her how strong storytelling could make complex technical ideas more accessible to business buyers.
Following the acquisition of Annese & Associates, Christina transitioned to agency life as Director of Content Marketing at Dixon Schwabl. Over three years in the agency world, she honed her skills across client delivery, cross-functional team coordination, and audience-centric campaign development. The agency environment served as a fast-paced training ground, allowing her to pair her deep technology background with strategic communications frameworks.
When Kara Rudy founded MarketDesign Consulting Inc. (MDCo) and recruited her to join as Creative Director in 2021, the move brought Christina’s career full circle. To deepen her strategic perspective, she pursued and completed a Master’s degree in Communications Management at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. Her capstone research focused on executive thought leadership in the AI era, an academic exploration that directly informed the service models she builds for technology clients today.
“We’re not here to invent anything. We’re here to see the best in you and your business, and make sure everyone else does, too.”
The Anatomy of Authentic Leadership: Influences and Personal Evolution
Rather than attributing her executive philosophy to a single turning point or corporate milestone, Christina sees her leadership style as the cumulative result of the women who mentored and modeled leadership for her throughout her career.
“The moments that have stayed with me most are actually pretty simple,” Christina shares. “They’re the times I’ve watched one of these women encourage someone, advocate for them when they weren’t in the room, highlight their contribution, or give them an opportunity they might not have seen for themselves.”
Watching these leaders in action reshaped her understanding of leadership. She came to realize that leadership is not about having every answer, reinforcing hierarchy, or taking personal credit for team outcomes. Instead, it is about cultivating a supportive environment where individuals feel safe to innovate, stretch their capabilities, and build enduring professional confidence.
That perspective became clearer during graduate school, where she worked with leadership mentor Elise Mitchell. Early in her career, Christina had assumed executive leadership required a more distant, polished persona. Through deliberate reflection and coaching, she unlearned that misconception, embracing the truth that effective leadership requires no mask. For Christina, leadership now comes down to presence, accountability, and a willingness to have honest conversations, whether delivering constructive feedback, navigating ambiguity, or publicly championing a colleague’s achievements.
Bridging Art and Business: Creative Direction at MarketDesign Consulting
In her role as Creative Director at MarketDesign Consulting, Christina leads a creative function designed to connect strong ideas with business outcomes. She leads the consulting firm’s copywriters, visual designers, and content strategists while maintaining a close, hands-on advisory relationship with client executives.
“My role is really about shepherding the creative process,” Christina explains. “Ultimately, good creative has to produce an outcome. Technology is a saturated market, so our job is to help our clients look, sound, and feel distinctly like themselves, to give them something they’re proud to put into the world, and create opportunities for growth.”
In the B2B technology space, the human element often gets buried in technical jargon, interchangeable feature lists, and boilerplate messages. For Christina, creative is always informed by evidence. Data, research, and discovery are essential to understanding the market, the audience, the competitive landscape, and where a client has a genuine opportunity to stand apart. Those insights give the creative process direction, helping the team make more informed choices about everything from positioning and messaging to content and visual identity.
Christina looks for the intersection of what the data reveals, what the business needs to accomplish, and what will genuinely resonate with the people it needs to reach. That is where creative and strategic communications become a growth lever—turning insight into a point of view, a differentiated market position, and work that gives people a reason to pay attention, remember, and act.
“Ultimately, good creative has to produce an outcome. Technology is a saturated market, so our job is to help our clients look, sound, and feel distinctly like themselves, to give them something they’re proud to put into the world, and create opportunities for growth.”
Helping IT Leaders Find their V.O.I.C.E.
Christina’s graduate research at Syracuse University became the foundation for V.O.I.C.E., a thought leadership program she developed to help technology executives turn their expertise, experience, and perspective into a distinct and credible voice in the market.
V.O.I.C.E. responds to a shift in B2B buyer behavior: enterprise buyers no longer respond to generic corporate press releases, preferring instead to connect with visible, trusted subject-matter experts.
“Content always starts with the subject-matter expert,” Christina notes. “Thought leadership takes that a step further by putting real people, their expertise, and their perspective at the center.”
Through V.O.I.C.E., MDCo looks beyond expertise alone to understand the experiences, beliefs, and patterns of thinking that shape how a leader sees their industry and approaches their work. An executive might casually mention growing up working in a family grocery store, for example. Christina sees more than an interesting anecdote; she looks for the connection between that experience and why the leader places such a premium on customer service today. Those insights become the foundation for a distinct point of view that carries across articles, speaking opportunities, podcasts, awards, and other thought leadership while building visibility and authority without losing the executive’s voice in the process.
But having a distinct point of view is only part of the visibility equation. As buyers increasingly turn to AI tools to research companies, evaluate expertise, and inform decisions, that perspective also needs to be structured so it can be found, understood, and surfaced. That is the role of MarketDesign’s proprietary Found First service, which helps brands and leaders build visibility across both traditional and AI-driven search.
Keeping Human Judgment at the Center of AI
As artificial intelligence tools become deeply embedded across corporate workflows and creative operations, Christina takes a deliberate approach to AI adoption. While she actively experiments with AI platforms to streamline research, analyze data sets, and overcome initial ideation hurdles, she believes editorial judgment and ethical responsibility must remain human responsibilities.
“Technology has always moved fast, but this AI era feels different,” Christina says. “We work exclusively with technology companies, and, to me, the mandate is pretty clear: we can’t lose the human in the business.”
That distinction becomes especially important when developing thought leadership assets for senior leaders. While automated software can quickly organize information or draft generic outlines, it cannot supply lived experience, personal conviction, or human accountability. Christina emphasizes that communications professionals play a vital role in corporate AI governance, helping organizations protect brand trust. Her approach pairs technological curiosity with clear guardrails, ensuring that every piece of content produced underher direction remains accurate, fair, transparent, and completely authentic to the individual whose name it bears.
“Leadership is how you show up. And sometimes, it’s simply the fact that you continue to show up—that you always show up.”
Presence over Balance
Navigating professional demands while raising an active toddler in a remote work environment requires deliberate boundaries and presence. Christina doesn’t pretend she’s figured out the perfect balance or that her attention is never divided. Instead, she tries to be mindful of the moments when she has a choice about where her attention goes. When her son asks her to play at the end of the day, she puts her phone in another room, gets down on the floor, looks him in the eye, and makes sure he feels like the center of her world in that moment.
She embraces the idea that routine, everyday moments often become the most cherished memories over time. Supported by a close-knit personal network that includes her husband, parents, and aunt, Christina has developed a practical view of work and family life. She views professional achievement and maternal presence not as competing interests, but as parts of the same full life.
Advice for Emerging Creative Leaders
For aspiring creative professionals, writers, and rising leaders seeking to build meaningful careers, Christina returns to two ideas: stay curious and contribute. She encourages emerging talents to cultivate wide-ranging interests outside their immediate professional disciplines, recognizing that creative ideas often emerge from connections between seemingly unrelated things.
“Be multifaceted,” Christina advises. “Curiosity makes you a better creative, but I think it also makes you a better leader because you stop assuming that your way of seeing something is the only way to see it.”
Christina places equal emphasis on personal initiative, professional integrity, and consistent execution. Rather than waiting for formal permission to contribute ideas or chasing quick praise, rising leaders should focus on solving tangible problems and becoming dependable team members. By showing what they can do through the work, treating colleagues with genuine respect, and lifting up those around them, young professionals can build lasting credibility and open doors to unexpected career opportunities.
“If my legacy is a million ordinary moments that left people feeling a little more seen, a little more confident, or a little brighter, that would be enough for me.”
A Legacy of Ordinary Moments
When considering the long-term legacy, she hopes to leave across MarketDesign Consulting and the wider marketing and communications community, Christina measures her impact through the personal growth and confidence of others.
Throughout her career, she benefited from mentors who advocated for her, opened doors, and recognized her potential before she fully recognized it herself. Today, she views her leadership role as an opportunity to extend that same advocacy to others, whether helping a junior team member find their creative footing, guiding a technology executive to articulate their vision, or helping a client recognize what makes their organization unique.
By maintaining an unwavering commitment to human empathy, ethical clarity, and authentic storytelling, Christina Jacobs continues to shape the future of B2B communications. Her career stands as an inspiring reminder that true leadership is ultimately measured not by individual accolades, but by a million quiet moments that leave others feeling seen, valued, and empowered to succeed.
