Strategic Partners

We're committed to partners who provide exceptional value to our clients and talent.

Benefits providers

We’ve been dedicated to caring for talent and offering the best benefits in the industry for decades, and we have chosen to work with benefits companies that share our values. We have long-standing relationships with market-leading providers, and this enables us to customize our benefits to adapt to our talent and staff’s changing wants and needs. We also regularly evaluate new benefits and providers to ensure we are delivering maximum value at the most affordable cost. Featured benefits partners:

Fidelity Investments

Fidelity is synonymous with retirement savings. Together, Fidelity helps us provide a complete fund lineup and personalized guidance, all at the lowest cost so our talent and staff can plan for their futures. 

Cigna Healthcare

Working together with Cigna over 20 years ago, Aquent was the first to figure out how to deliver benefits to contingent talent. Today, Cigna continues to meet our unique needs by supporting custom benefits through Square Deal.

The Hartford

By working with The Hartford, we are able to offer supplemental insurance plans that deliver coverage with fewer restrictions, greater flexibility, and lower costs to maximize the value to talent and staff.

Expert network

We believe in the value of outside perspectives, especially during the hiring process. That's why we’ve developed a network of 23 industry experts in Design, UX, Web Development, and Digital Marketing to conduct independent assessments of our talent. During these assessments, experts review talent portfolios and ask questions to better understand their technical skills and experience. The experts then follow up on these discussions by creating interview summaries that are submitted to clients.

MEET SOME OF OUR EXPERTS
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Todd Hovey

Marketing & Business Strategist

Todd Hovey is a digital marketing expert with 15+ years of client and marketing agency leadership roles targeting B2B and B2C audiences with lead generation, branding, advertising, and content strategies. Todd has deep expertise in developing, discerning the right resource needs, and executing email marketing, digital advertising, content strategies, websites, social media, influencer, SEO, SEM, and a solid understanding of marketing automation tools and technologies (i.e. Salesforce, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Hootsuite, Marketo, Pardot, etc.) to optimize marketing operations, campaign analysis, and reporting. Todd has led successful marketing strategies for start-ups to global organizations including Bose, Citibank, Dish Network, Disney, eBay, Humana, Magneto, Microsoft, Neustar and Verizon and he is also a founding member of Aquent’s Digital Marketing Experts team that contributed to the design, development, and launch of Aquent’s Digital Marketing Practice. Todd has already performed over 500 digital marketing independent assessments and he has provided consultative services for Aquent clients as well as led digital marketing discussions at Aquent-sponsored events.

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Jason Brownewell

UX Consultant

Jason Brownewell is an award-winning UX leader and seasoned digital strategist with over 25 years of leadership and consulting experience. Jason’s an expert at recruiting and developing the talent and practices to deliver phenomenal digital experiences. He’s built dozens of UX teams and digital practices across a wide range of industries and companies, including: Fortune 500, internet startups, and B2B and B2C e-commerce teams. From 2008-11, Jason helped lead and develop Aquent’s Interactive Design and UX Practices.

Jason enjoys working with all levels of UX candidates to help them land that next gig. He’s an expert at helping refine resumes, portfolios, and storytelling so that they work together and hone in on the most marketable (and unique) skillsets, competencies, and experiences. He also offers valuable feedback to address potential issues and skill gaps. You’ll find Jason an enthusiastic partner and advisor in your UX freelancing journey.

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Katie Osborne

Product Design Manager

Katie Osborne is a Product Design Manager with 14 years of industry experience spanning across the USA, UK, and Australia, who firmly believes in data-driven design. As well as managing creative teams of Interaction/Visual designers and Research, she loves getting her hands dirty in the details. Her expertise spans from e-commerce and directory websites to apps and FinTech products. She has a passion for building high-functioning teams through synergistic culture through collaboration. She feels strongly that design is about more than making things look pretty. It’s about creating a user-centered intuitive experience that solves the problem at hand by combining research insights to influence the way a product functions, feels, and looks.

Learning platform

Open edX

We believe lifelong learning is fundamental to career growth and professional development. We are proud to partner with the leading online learning platform, Open edX, to deliver Aquent Gymnasium, our free catalog of online courses taught by industry experts. Gymnasium provides a unique combination of skill-building opportunities in web design, UX, development, and more with job opportunities thanks to Aquent’s vast network of recruiters and clients. In addition, we frequently share our experience with Open edX at events and contribute code to improve this open-source platform.

Renowned instructors

Ask any student and they will tell you that the professor makes the course. We make sure that our Gymnasium instructors are not only engaging but also the best in their fields. From design to development and more, our 21 course instructors are thought-leaders who are well known in their industries and willing to share their expertise in order to create a better future and support continuous learning.

MEET SOME OF THE INSTRUCTORS
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Stephanie Hay

Vice President, Design

Writing for Web & Mobile

Stephanie Hay is currently VP Design at Capital One, where she leads conversational AI and integrated experiences. She was listed as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2019 by Fast Company. Steph is co-founding editor of Work Design Magazine and co-founder of FastCustomer. She has designed content for UIE, Ben & Jerry’s, and The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Steph loves CrossFit®, ramen, and laughing.

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Brad Frost

Web Design Consultant

Working with Atomic Design and Pattern Lab

Brad Frost is a web designer, speaker, consultant, writer, and musician located in beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. He is the author of Atomic Design, a book on how to create and maintain effective design systems. Brad loves helping people understand the concepts, techniques, and tools used to create successful design systems and establish more collaborative workflows. In addition to his frequent appearances at web conferences around the world, Brad also conducts workshops and consults with organizations who need help bringing great web projects to life.

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Aaron Gustafson

Principal Program Manager

Modern Web Design

Aaron Gustafson is a web standards and accessibility advocate at Microsoft, where he works closely with the Edge browser team. He is the author of Adaptive Web Design, a book about crafting rich experiences with progressive enhancement. Aaron helps organizations tackle complex design challenges by using Easy Designs and Rosenfeld Media. You’ll often find him on the road, presenting at conferences and running workshops.

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Graham Roberts

Digital Design Lead

Information Design and Visualization Fundamentals 3D Modeling for Virtual Reality Creation

Graham Roberts is the Digital Design Lead at Google Brand Studio Creative. Previously, at The New York Times, he led a team that explored new approaches in video, motion graphics, and virtual/augmented reality. As a senior graphics editor at The New York Times, he produced a wide range of critically-acclaimed visual journalism projects. His work has been recognized by the Webbys, an Emmy® award, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and Pulitzer Prizes.