Mike O'Neill
Brand Steward · Executive Creative Director
michaelcjoneill@gmail.com · 415 728 1300 · michaelcjoneill.com

April 2026

Dear Hiring Team

I applied for this role last year, shortly after finishing Thirst in a single sitting. My interest has not dimmed. If anything, watching charity: water continue to set the standard for what a mission-driven brand can be, has made coming back feel less like reapplying and more like arriving at the right moment.

A brief reintroduction: I am the brand architect behind Humans of HOKA, a storytelling platform I built from a blank page into a global content engine spanning film, podcast, and social, anchoring a brand that scaled from $60M to $600M in my first three years, and to over $2B during my tenure. It was not a big-budget operation; it was a small team that threw themselves completely into every frame, every conversation, every story, because we believed the work mattered. The results live at michaelcjoneill.com. Emotionally driven, rigorously produced, and built on a foundational belief that the most powerful thing a brand can do is tell the truth about its people.

That belief is why charity: water has always felt like the north star of this kind of work.

I am not a committee creative. I build systems that protect quality at scale, develop the people who carry a brand forward, and maintain the clarity of a founding vision against the entropy that comes with growth. I have done it inside brands and alongside them. I understand the particular responsibility of stewarding a story that belongs to the people in it, not the organization telling it.

The role you are building requires someone who can hold the integrity of what has already been created while constructing the operational infrastructure to take it further. That is the work I do.

I have applied formally through your process. This letter is simply to say: I am the real thing, I have been paying attention for a long time, and I would welcome a conversation.

With respect and genuine admiration

Mike O'Neill
michaelcjoneill.com