Claire Taylor takes clients into new territory. With vast experience across industries, she immerses herself in each client’s culture and objectives, and then sets a strategic foundation for verbal, visual and experiential expression.

Claire has extensive experience with integrated branding, advertising, environmental and audience-centered design engagements. She has worked with clients spanning the globe, including financial market leaders such as S&P Dow Jones Indices, Thomson Reuters, UBS and BNY Mellon. Prior to joining Carpenter Group, Claire spent 17 years at Carbone Smolan Agency, a multidisciplinary firm, leading its creative strategy practice. Key clients included the Louvre, Christie’s and Herman Miller.

BA, University of California at Berkeley
MFA, Rhode Island School of Design

Chris Hoch is a multidisciplinary design leader fluent in the dynamic multichannel marketing landscape. He and his team deliver creative solutions across advertising, branding and digital client engagements.

Over the past 20 years, Chris has been the creative leader on large-scale project teams, overseeing the development of strategic marketing campaigns and user experiences for Fortune 500 companies. His award-winning work includes assignments that drew thousands of new users, returned click-through rates greater than 4x the industry average, and opened the doors to a new generation of customers.

BFA, Rochester Institute of Technology — Graphic Design

As a writer, editor and communications professional, Bruce has helped clients in a wide array of industries tell their stories with clarity, impact and style. At Carpenter Group, he has crafted thought leadership, branding and marketing content for financial services and wealth management clients. Prior to joining Carpenter Group in 2018, Bruce ran his own freelance practice, working with such clients as Citigroup, IBM, Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Johnson & Johnson and CUNY. For Deloitte, he launched and edited Global, a prize-winning journal of fact and opinion covering the international business arena. Earlier in his career, Bruce served as a speechwriter and communications executive for Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Siegel and Gale, among other firms. His work has appeared in The New York Times and numerous other publications, and he has written five books — most recently, What Were They Thinking? Really Bad Ideas Throughout History.

BA, Brooklyn College — English
MA, Case Western Reserve University — Literature

Polly Carpenter has seen it all. She’s participated in nearly four decades of the financial industry’s evolution. She guides us with her creative vision and oversees Carpenter Group’s overall management.

Polly has brought a passionate commitment to financial services marketing since founding Carpenter Group in 1982. She’s helped navigate hundreds of clients through the dramatic expansion of the financial services industry since the 1980s. She has been involved in the launch of many of the country’s best-known financial services brands in areas such as mutual funds, separately managed accounts, ETFs, retirement platforms and annuities, resulting in many billions of assets raised.

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
BFA, Rhode Island School of Design

Paul orchestrates client success. With more than three decades’ experience directing accounts and implementing successful branding and marketing programs on both the agency and client side, Paul is the consummate client advocate and partner.

Most recently Paul was Director of Client Services at Landor Associates, the world’s largest branding and design agency. His clients included Barclays, Capital One, JP Morgan, Delta, United, Cleveland Clinic, Pfizer, ITT, Brasil Telecom, Leviton, Moen and the US Department of Homeland Security, among many others. In addition, Paul led the implementation of the iconic brands that now define the transformation of downtown Manhattan, including the 9/11 Memorial, the World Trade Center, NYSE and Trinity Church.

Prior to joining Landor, Paul spent 11 years at MetLife as Director of Creative Services, marketing a broad range of insurance and investment products for both institutional and retail audiences. He also served as chairman of the brand standards committee which set policy and provided oversight of the MetLife brand.

BFA, Columbus College of Art & Design

Ryan Pritchard works with financial services companies to design and build websites that people use. As a User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) specialist, graphic designer and web producer, he has played a key role on major website initiatives for asset management and wealth advisory firms and large multi-line institutions. His experience includes start-to-launch website development, content optimization, site expansions to reach new audiences or support new products, rearchitecting for regional needs and building worldwide website ecosystems.

Most recently, Ryan designed and prototyped accessibility enhancements for 16 Legg Mason regional websites to ensure compliance with the American Disabilities Act (ADA) and the European Accessibility Act. He also led the migration of the company’s global content management system to a new universally accessible platform. The training guides he developed are used by local marketing teams in 30+ countries and new marketing email templates increased click-through rates by more than 25%.