What began as a video editing role quietly expanded, over nearly a decade, into something far harder to job-title. Alongside the motion and production work, I took on art direction, instructional design, LMS coordination, studio production, brand development, and operational infrastructure — growing into each discipline as the platform demanded it. By the end, very little about how Academy looked, taught, or ran didn’t have my fingerprints on it.
One of the less visible but most consequential parts of the role was building and maintaining the documentation infrastructure that kept everything running. I developed and managed a comprehensive tracking system covering live courseware and LMS builds, the total video library, scripts and storyboard archives, digital assets including icons, logos, graphics, audio files, b-roll, templates, and research. The system was detailed enough that I had a tracking document for the tracking documents. In a content operation of this scale — hundreds of videos, multiple active platforms, recurring rebrands — that infrastructure wasn’t administrative overhead. It was what made everything else possible.
Academy existed as a sub-brand within a tightly governed brand system, which meant every creative decision had to honour Hootsuite’s guidelines while carving out a distinct educational identity. I maintained that balance across all three brand eras, developing a visual system that felt cohesive and purposeful without being a straight copy of the parent. The measure of how well it worked: assets and approaches I developed for Academy were adopted into the broader Hootsuite brand system during both major rebrands.
Beyond brand direction, I designed across every surface Academy occupied — website and LMS headers, course slide decks, SCORM packages, and a unified icon library that became shared infrastructure across the team. The icon set and design system gave the platform a consistent visual language for communicating complex concepts whether they appeared in a video, a web page, or a downloadable resource.
I came into this discipline through collaboration with a dedicated instructional designer on the team and grew into it enough to execute autonomously. My involvement covered the full pipeline: researching platforms and features, writing and editing scripts, developing course outlines and storyboards, and planning the courseware roadmap across the catalogue. This applied not just to the flagship social media courses but to how-to videos, hype and social content, and bespoke training materials developed for specific audiences and use cases.
The research side was more involved than it sounds — staying current on rapidly evolving platforms like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and translating that into structured, teachable content required as much editorial judgment as it did educational design.
At its peak, the Academy LMS housed around eight flagship courses alongside a growing ecosystem of custom builds: micro-courses for sales enablement, enterprise client onboarding, white-labeled bespoke courses for specific clients, and a Skillshare course. I coordinated builds across multiple platforms — Thinkific, Sana, Articulate/Rise 360, and Highspot — creating SCORMs, building out quizzes and assessments, and maintaining the full catalogue as it evolved through rebrands and content updates. Keeping all of it current, consistent, and functional across platforms was a discipline in itself.
Beyond the editing bay, I was a hands-on presence across every stage of physical production — building and maintaining Academy’s video studio, handling camera, sound, and lighting, managing set dressing, and directing on-camera talent. I also stepped in front of the camera myself, both as a presenter and voiceover artist, and collaborated with other team members through recording and editing sessions. The studio ran like a professional production environment because someone was treating it like one.
That depth of knowledge across production, systems, and tooling naturally made me a resource people turned to. Over time that grew into something more intentional — coaching team members on video and design fundamentals, creating quick-reference guides and how-to materials, and producing short training videos for CSMs and sales staff who needed to build their own content. It was never a formal part of the role, but it became a consistent one.
View the channel: hootsuite.com/academy
