Bio
“I love learning what a creative professional does,” says Keva Dine, “and then figuring out which people in my database would make the best use of those talents. I visualize it as drawing a dotted line between two points in my network. Connecting those dots is incredibly satisfying.”
Keva is one of the nation’s top creative recruiters in part because she is a creative herself. Yet working with creative people has always energized her above all else, and she finds team-building the most gratifying creative task.
She’s been tasked with tracking down a VP Global Brand/Creative for DC Shoes; an Account Coordinator to work on Apple’s account for the tech giant’s agency of record; a senior photo/art director for Target’s Midwestern advertising; and a Trend Hunter/Brand Strategist for a globally recognized, New York-based think tank, among many others.
Keva’s eye for talent, extensive reach and uncanny ability to turn a job description into a “creative brief” have made her indispensable to clients. Even when that description calls for a savvy mover-shaker into fashion and tech with agency experience who speaks Mandarin. (Keva drew her dotted line and found an ideal candidate; the deal was sealed in two weeks.)
Her reliability and judgment as to whether a job is an ideal fit, meanwhile – as well as her innate understanding of the creative mindset – have endeared her to candidates.
The San Diego native founded Keva Dine Agency, inc. in 2001 and made her first placement six weeks later with RipCurl. She’s since built a sterling reputation as a creative connector. Keva Dine Agency provides both candidate and agency searches, serving advertising and design firms, retailers (notably in the cosmetics, apparel and action sports sectors), and marketing and PR firms, as well as job seekers. “Keva is stellar,” declares client Lisa Prisco, a former Creative Director at The Gap. “She has a keen understanding of people and a consistently evolving eye for business.”
Before placing creatives, she pursued her own creative path. She founded Keva Marie designs in 1990, and the groundbreaking girls’ clothing line Poot! the following year. Poot! became a fixture in local skate shops and soon went global. She served as brand director and apparel designer, concocting the fierce GIRLS KICK ASS! slogan and logo, and became a pioneer in the online-couture space by orchestrating the debut of poot.com in 1992. Next came the cutting-edge zine Foxy (distributed to a global fan base as well as at all urban outfitters locations) and foxy.com (created in response to Poot’s avalanche of fan mail), which paved the way for other girls’ fashion lines, and then her “Jump on Style” page for Wieder Publications’ teen-style mag Jump!
As Art Director at Lambesis Advertising , Keva crafted campaigns for Bebe, Levi’s, Fetish, Love’s Baby Soft, Hot Topic and other brands. She also became Editor-in-Chief of retailer Wet Seal’s in-house magazine, Sweetie, and its successor, Phoebe, crafting content, creating contests, spearheading branding initiatives, and hiring and managing freelancers. 2001 saw the publication of Hey, Day! Super-Amazing, Funk-da-crazing, Ultra-Glazing Things to Do, Make and Ponder Every Day of the Year, an activity book for teens she co-wrote with good friend Clea Hantman; it was published by HarperCollins.
She hasn’t looked back. In 2008 she unveiled Creative Profiles, which offers an array of personal branding services to job-seeking creatives.
