Daneshé Henry
Brand & Marketing Strategist / Founder of Studio Wellspring
Brooklyn, NY
www.studiowellspring.com
instagram @daneshehenry @studiowellspring_
Q What do you do?
“I’m a brand and marketing strategist and the founder of Studio Wellspring.”
I work with founders who are building something smart and cool and need help figuring out where to compete, how to establish what actually makes their business valuable, and then how to build a marketing strategy around that. Using the thing that makes them unique as the engine.The work starts at the strategy level: who are you, where do you play, why does it matter? Then we translate that into marketing that can actually drive growth. That includes brand positioning, campaigns, experiential, organic social, partnerships, and go-to-market strategy. I just always start from the strategic place first. I specialize in helping consumer-facing brands in fashion, beauty, tech, and CPG figure out how to move upmarket, stand out in crowded categories, or communicate a new kind of product that people don't have context for yet.
Google Gemini, Oscar Piastri Austin F1 Race Helmet (image source: Instagram @oscarpiastri)
Q What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
Honestly, I think I've always been on this path in some form or fashion. It started in high school when I got completely taken over by the world of luxury fashion. I knew I didn't want to be a designer. I wanted to be on the business side. I was scrolling Teen Vogue's careers page one day and read about someone in PR and something clicked: I want a career at the intersection of business and fashion. That led me to marketing, and from there I was like, okay, if I'm going to college, I need to find a school with a serious marketing program and a real fashion community.
That's how I found Penn. At Wharton, I studied marketing, did all of my internships in marketing, and in my junior year, I had to choose between an offer at Estee Lauder and Google. I went to Google because I could see how it put me at the intersection of tech, entertainment, fashion, and beauty all at once. And that turned out to be exactly right. I spent five years there across Gemini, YouTube, and Google Play doing brand marketing.
One of the most formative experiences in my education was the Wharton International Program on the business of luxury. Retail treks in Milan, Rome, and Venice, visiting the offices of Prada Group, Dolce and Gabbana, Bulgari, and others. That's when I really started to understand the psychology of luxury brand building. Not everything we call luxury is luxury. There's a whole psychological architecture behind it. And funny enough, the next semester I spent in Milan at Bocconi, where I took a course on the management of fashion companies. So it was basically a double dose of learning directly in Italy, being immersed in it. I've been obsessed with the question ever since: how do you bring that to brands that aren't luxury? How do you take something and help it move upmarket? That's the work I'm doing now with Studio Wellspring.
Q How do you stand out in your field?
Most people who call themselves marketers start with marketing tactics (ie, content concepts, ad concepts, etc.). I start with strategy, specifically where you compete and what makes you worth choosing. I fundamentally believe that the fastest way to waste a marketing budget is to pour it into a product or brand that hasn't done the work of differentiation first. So my process always starts upstream: what is the actual moat here? What is the positioning that creates leverage? And then we build the marketing from that foundation.
I've seen this work especially well with brands trying to move upmarket or enter a category they're creating. When clients come into brand positioning sprints confused about how to communicate what they do, and by the end of the process, they're having lightbulb moments about how to position their brand in a way that feels genuinely innovative, that's the work I'm here for. I've watched CPG founders figure out how to take something that reads as a mass market product and reposition it as a premium offering. That shift from confusion to clarity and leverage, that's what I do.
Q What are you working on right now?
I'm currently running my first cohort of brand positioning sprints with clients across fashion, beauty, tech, and CPG. I'm in the early stages of Studio Wellspring, building the practice, learning from every single engagement, and being thoughtful about how I grow it. I'm also actively connecting with creatives who specialize in content, social, and design, because I believe the best work happens when great strategists and great creatives are in the same orbit.
Q What’s your style?
I'm drawn to brands that are building slowly and intentionally in a world that rewards speed and scale above everything else. Premium, but accessible. Elevated without being cold. The kind of brand that has a real point of view and makes you feel something. A brand I think is doing this exceptionally right now is Lore in the fragrance space—accessible price point, but everything about the packaging, the world-building, the content feels considered and elevated. That's the energy I'm always chasing with clients.
Q Out of all your slashies, which one do you wish you could do more often?
The strategy work is what I love most. The deeper positioning, brand architecture, and business strategy layer. If I could live there all day and pass the baton to brilliant creative partners while staying in as a thought partner, that would be the dream setup.
Q What is frustrating you right now?
Navigating the difference between learning through doing, which I genuinely believe is the most effective way, and learning through study, which is pretty native to me as someone who's always been academic and cerebral. When you're building something new, there's a constant tension between wanting to have it all figured out before you move and knowing that the figuring out actually happens in motion. I'm working on making peace with that.
Q If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?
Run my social media so my brain can fully focus on my clients' social strategy. The cobbler's children, you know. The irony is not lost on me.
Google Gemini x McLaren F1 partnership, 2025 — McLaren livery with Gemini enhancement (image source: McLaren Media Center)
Q What do you wish you could have told yourself, when, and why?
That it's okay to create. That it's okay to be seen in process — still building, still figuring it out — and that people want to help more than you think. I wish I'd known that earlier and let it free me up to start sooner.
Q If you could talk to an expert to gain more insight on something, what would it be about?
Human-first marketing and business development—how to build your own pipeline and visibility engine in a way that actually feels like you, not like you're performing some growth hack strategy. I'm actively exploring this, but I'd love to go deeper with someone who's cracked it.
Q What kind of opportunities/projects are you looking for?
Primarily new consulting clients for Studio Wellspring, founders building consumer-facing brands in fashion, beauty, tech, and CPG who are ready to do the strategic work. I'm also actively looking to build relationships with operators and creatives, especially people who specialize in content creation, graphic design, and video. Beyond client work, I'm open to aligned visibility opportunities: panels, podcasting, newsletter guesting, guest writing, and press. If it's a conversation that would be meaningful to the right audience, I'm interested.
Q Describe your ideal job/client/collaboration.
My ideal client is building a consumer-facing brand, or a B2B brand that has a distinctly non-traditional approach, and they're at the point where they know they have something real but they're struggling to communicate it in a way the outside world can grasp. They're asking: how do I turn this into a brand that has community, loyalty, advocacy? How do I actually market this? I love that problem.I especially love working with brands in fashion, beauty, tech, and CPG, and I find it particularly interesting when those categories intersect. Fashion tech, beauty tech, the brands doing something that doesn't fit neatly into one box. If you're building something at that edge and you want a partner who will think about it from the ground up, strategy first, marketing second, let's chat.
Q: What is your rate?
My deeper strategic engagements start at $4,500 for scaling businesses. If you're not sure where you fall or what makes sense for what you're building, just reach out—I'm happy to talk through what would actually be useful for your stage (all pre-launch + early-stage clients, welcome!)
Q How should someone approach you about working together?
Be nice, be natural, and tell me what you're working on and how you think I could help. That's genuinely it. A brief intro with what you're building and what you're trying to figure out is the best starting point for a good conversation.
Jenny Hoyos — Google Gemini influencer campaign (source: Jenny Hoyos YouTube)
Q Oh! and… how do you stay creative?
Guard your heart. Build with intention.
This member profile was originally published in April 2026.