Jesse Stagg is a veteran international media and entertainment industry creative leader working at the intersection of creative development, technology, and global storytelling. Born in New York and raised in Cape Town, he began his career at Ogilvy Advertising before returning to Los Angeles to expand his impact in media and entertainment with leadership roles at some of the world's leading global media networks. Stagg’s fascination with emerging cultural movements first took root in Africa. As an early cultural entrepreneur in the embryonic hip-hop and electronic music scenes, he established the seminal club Eden and produced the first large-scale raves in Africa. Staged during the waning days of Apartheid, these prescient, socially diverse experiential events were a unifying force that helped catalyze a movement that eventually evolved into a multi-billion-dollar global cultural and economic force, and set the creative trajectory and innovative mindset that informs his entire multidisciplinary career. Once back in the United States, Stagg sought to scale this approach going on to hold key creative leadership roles at major media conglomerates—Disney, Viacom/Paramount, Cartoon Network, and CBS/Infinity—alongside consultancies with Warner Brothers, Fox, and Netflix. He directed marketing initiatives that launched a new generation of Emmy-winning animated series for Cartoon Network and developed industry-first digital style guides for the Star Trek franchise at Paramount. During the early internet era, he was a design lead for large-scale digital platform launches, including Disney.com. As Sr. Art Director at CBS Infinity, he oversaw the online launch of major market stations from KCBS to KROQ, alongside the digital launch campaign for the first Coachella Festival. An early innovator in streaming media, he created the groundbreaking cyber-animated series The 7th Portal on shockwave.com, produced by and featuring Marvel icon Stan Lee—a project that broke online viewing records and coined the term "webisode." Beyond commercial media, Stagg has been an influential force in the fine arts, cultural and experiential sectors. As Communications Chair of the Graphic Arts Council at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), he spearheaded a relaunch that tripled membership and pioneered the "Into the Pixel" video game art awards—making LACMA the first global arts institution to recognize the medium as a major new art form. As an academic, serving as an Adjunct Professor of Media Arts at UCLA Design Media Arts and a lecturer at California State University Los Angeles, Stagg has played a formative role in developing the next generation of creators and storytellers. His global curation and consulting portfolio includes serving as US consultant to Banksy for his record-breaking Barely Legal exhibition, and as Director of Video for the influential US arts portal ForYourArt.com. He produced Leonardo DiCaprio's millennium event and Earth Day webcasts with Sir Arthur C. Clarke in partnership with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Foundation, and curated the iconic 10-story mural tribute to Nelson Mandela in South Africa by artist Shepard Fairey in partnership with the U.S. Department of State. This diverse background established the foundation for a multidisciplinary career aligned with transformative shifts in media, culture, and technology. From the birth of the Internet to social media and now Artificial Intelligence, he has consistently been at the vanguard of understanding, synthesizing, and implementing new media arts and technologies. Today, Stagg helps agencies, brands, institutions, and global media networks build, design, and empower creative teams and systems that use AI to scale output without losing meaning, craft, or cultural intelligence. Now based between South Africa and Los Angeles, he is bridging his Hollywood experience, cultural entrepreneurship, and expertise in emerging technologies. Through a new venture, he aims to restore and strengthen cultural and business ties between the United States and the Global South, positioning Africa as a central hub for the creation of globally facing media and IP development.