About Herz.Works

Herz.Works is Denglisch (German + English) for Heart.Works.

While the work we do is rooted in years of experience, it’s also grounded by empathy and emotion. To be heard and understood, it’s important to connect and empathize with your audience. Missing in most communications, this empathy is what we’ve been bringing to our clients since 2015.

Herz.Works is a certified Women Business Enterprise (WBE) in the state of Oregon and an LGBT Business Enterprise®

 

Who we work with.

 

Nonprofits

Purpose driven businesses

Local organizations on a mission

Environmental stewards

Startups making this world better

 

Our Process

Define

Grounding in Goals

We begin by defining both the goals and the impact we’re after. Your mission, purpose and organizational objectives will set the stage for our strategy. Your organization’s history helps us understand what has or hasn’t worked before.

Understand

Empathizing with Audiences

We seek to understand and help further define your audiences, and grasp their needs through an empathetic, user-centered process. Additionally, we look to adjacent brands to begin to differentiate you from them.

Strategize

Rooting Strategy in the Why

Building on our understanding of your organization and the specific needs of your audiences, we develop a strategy for reaching the impact we’re after. We always tie messaging to the audiences and means of delivery.

Implement

Designing With Purpose

Based on our strategy, along with our knowledge of you and your audiences, we create thoughtful, compelling, and creative content to deliver on our defined goals. We test any assumptions and iterate to ensure we’re meeting our objectives.

 

What we stand for.

 

We are committed to social justice and actively creating an equitable world for marginalized communities.

We are dedicated to creating a more accessible digital space.

We are collaborative, excellent listeners and connect to our clients’ greatest needs.

We make recommendations that are a fit for our clients’ resources.

We consider all angles and push limits, drawing on our experience in multiple industries.

We mitigate our impact on the planet and work to leave her better than we found her.

 

Team

Cameron McCosh (she/her)

Founder and Lead Strategist

Cameron has over 10 years of experience crafting important and nuanced messages for diverse audiences—from progressive CEOs and dedicated Congresspeople to curious students and parents wanting a better world for their kids.  

After earning her Master’s Degree in Public Policy from American University she helped launch an economic policy think tank in Washington, DC. As COO, she led organizational strategy and managed policy and communications teams assessing and evaluating policy proposals and advocating for a price on carbon within conservative circles. With her help, the organization grew from the corners of local coffee shops (with the outlets nearby) to an actual office, and a $6 million annual budget. The National Journal named her one of Washington’s Most Influential Women in 2013.

Equipped with this new prestige, Cameron left Washington for Berlin, where she had absolutely zero influence—especially while trying to order a simple black coffee. Awarded a fellowship with the Robert Bosch Foundation, Cameron spent the year researching German female entrepreneurship and working in the Bundestag. She later served on the Board of the Robert Bosch Foundation Alumni Association as Communications Chair.

In 2015, Cameron launched Herz.Works to support organizations and mission-based businesses doing better for people and planet. One of those impressive businesses scooped her up full-time. As VP of Brand, Cameron brought Blue Evolution’s sustainable seaweed to natural grocery stores nationwide. Fueled by the nutrients in North American farmed seaweed, she went back to serving clients through Herz.Works in 2018.

Cameron is a trained equity and inclusion specialist, an INFJ, and a bleeding heart. She loves running longer and faster, cold water plunges, hiking and mushroom hunting, choosing the perfect playlist for the mood, and biking her kids around Portland.

 

Mary Kate Hayden (she/her)

Art Director

Mary Kate is a multi-disciplinary designer with over 10 years of experience. She has a Master’s in Graphic Design from the Academy of Art University and a BA in Studio Art from the University of California, Davis.

Post-Master’s she spent four years working within the tech industry as a user experience, user interface, interaction and visual designer. The majority of that time was spent working as the Senior User Experience designer at Quid, Inc., a data visualization platform. While at Quid, Mary Kate leveraged her diverse design skillset to guide and influence the branding and marketing in addition to her primary role as a digital product designer. For her user experience work at Quid she contributed to and was awarded three design patents.

Following her time at Quid, Mary Kate worked as a visual designer and art director on GoPro’s Advertising team where she had the privilege of leading the global art direction of the company by way of the bi-annual campaign art direction. She interfaced with multiple creative teams across global regions to help guide usage and implementation of the art direction as well as creating assets that spanned social, digital, print and video executions.

As the Art Director of Herz.Works, Mary Kate designs and develops websites, rebranding efforts, and various visual design projects across a number of industries and clients while supporting the development of the strategic and creative vision of those companies.

 

Justin MAbee (He/Him)

Web Designer, Strategist

Justin Mabee is a freelance Squarespace website designer with nearly a decade of experience. Working in web design and strategy, he has built well over 500 custom websites and worked on tweaks and changes for hundreds more.

Justin got his start doing Squarespace design with Sixty, a former startup that matched freelancers with clients for live, online collaborative work, and soon began to grow his business. Over the years, he has learned several no-code platforms and become proficient in several, such as Airtable, Notion, Typeform, Memberspace, Mailchimp, and much more.

As a Web Designer at Herz.Works, Justin designs and develops websites and makes updates on visual design projects as needed.

 

Lizzy Atwood Wills (She/her)

Project Manager

Lizzy has 8 years of experience as a jane-of-all-trades in Oregon politics. From Chief of Staff to lobbying, to running and fundraising for campaigns, she has worked her way through progressive politics.

In 2022, Lizzy decided to quit her day-job, and start two businesses— one, as a freelancer, picking up project management, policy, and strategic consulting gigs to support her second, and more impassioned longer term dream of a women-focused small group adventure travel business.

As a skilled organizer and DIY’er from her political days, Lizzy supports Herz.works’ clients through creating project plans and timelines, editing copy, and keeping the trains running on time.