Today we’d like to introduce you to Mia Germain.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m a Los Angeles native, raised in a bilingual family where both of my parents, Daiana Baldanzi and Clark Germain, made it a priority that I grow up speaking Italian. That early immersion in language shaped everything about me. It gave me a deep appreciation for communication, culture, and the emotional nuance behind how people express themselves. My mom left Italy in her early twenties to force her own path, running her own business and raising me a full thirteen-house flight away from her own family. Her courage and independence have been a lifelong model of strength. My dad also brought his punk-rock ethos into my foundation, teaching me to be proud of whatever set me apart and to be a maker of the world I want to see and experience. Together, my parents gave me both my creative lens and my drive to carve my own path.
After high school, I spent ten years in Boston where I continued my education in Business and ultimately found myself working in food industry marketing. It was an exciting chapter, but eventually I had to ask myself whether I truly wanted to build my life on the East Coast. The answer was a swift, intuitive no.
Leaving Sid Wainer & Son, the East Coast’s leading gourmet food distributor, was bittersweet. During my time there, I helped grow the marketing department from two graphic designers focused on B2B sell sheets into a full CPG-driven force capable of standing toe-to-toe with the Sysco’s of the world. That experience cemented what I still love most today: blending creativity with strategy and pairing big ideas with efficiency, structure, and measurable results.
When I returned home to Los Angeles, I shifted into restaurant marketing and eventually continued my culinary education inside the kitchen at 71Above. It was an exceptional pivot, going from the purveyor and distributor to working directly within a fine-dining environment. That time taught me not only about hospitality (and let’s be honest, wine!), but also about the power and impact of strong agency partnerships and the very real limitations of being a one-woman marketing, advertising, and PR team.
When I began exploring what I wanted next, I took the advice of my stepmom, Tina Germain, and made a list of my non-negotiables. I wanted a team that felt like family, people who valued overdelivering ahead of schedule, and a culture where creative expression wasn’t just allowed, it was encouraged.
That list led me to Arcana Academy, a Venice-based creative advertising agency that has spent over 14 years delivering big-agency ideas with boutique-agency agility. I joined in February 2020, just weeks before the world shut down. Arcana has a beautiful guiding principle: we can do anything except nothing. That philosophy carried me through lockdown, where I taught myself Photoshop just to compete in internal creative challenges and finally picked up writing again for personal pleasure for the first time since undergraduate school.
The natural synergy between my desire to grow and Arcana’s support of curiosity, across both professional and personal disciplines, shaped my entire journey here. I started as a paid social media manager on a single account, and today I serve as the Director of Client Services & Paid Social across all lines of business. It has been the most aligned and fulfilling chapter of my career so far.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t think anyone has a truly smooth road. And honestly, I’m grateful for that. Every challenge comes with a lesson, and those moments have shaped who I am today and the woman I’m still becoming.
Growing up bilingual and culturally different from most of the kids around me wasn’t always easy. Language, heritage, and self-expression set me apart, and as a child that felt isolating. But over time, it became my superpower. It taught me to be comfortable in my own skin, to appreciate difference instead of fearing it, and to really see people. Today, that perspective is one of my greatest strengths. It’s the lens I use to uncover cultural insights, understand how people communicate, and help brands stand apart by speaking directly to the nuances of their audiences.
Another defining challenge was spending a full decade of my most formative years, ages 17 to 27, living across the country from my family. Navigating young adulthood alone taught me how to trust myself after making inevitable mistakes. We all misstep, but I learned that preparedness, honesty, and transforming lessons into action are what allow us to grow, personally and professionally.
My biggest professional struggle came from attempting to do the impossible: stepping into a role that required me to be strategist, producer, photographer, copywriter, media buyer, and PR agent all at once. I’m naturally multidisciplinary, but no one can play every position without sacrificing quality, sleep, or sanity. That experience became one of my greatest teachers. It showed me firsthand why specialized experts matter in the same way you’d never want your doctor to also be your pharmacist, surgeon, and radiologist in one.
That realization ultimately led me toward agency life, where collaboration isn’t just supported; it’s the foundation. Working with people who are all brilliant in their respective disciplines has not only elevated the work, it’s allowed me to step fully into my strengths and do the kind of strategic, culturally resonant storytelling I love most.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At my core, I’m a storyteller who uses strategy as the framework and creativity as the engine. Today, I serve as the Director of Client Serices & Paid Social at Arcana Academy, where I oversee client relationships, brand strategy, creative alignment, and performance-driven advertising across all lines of business. My role sits at the intersection of communication, insight, and execution. And that’s exactly where I thrive.
What I specialize in is helping brands understand who they’re speaking to and why it matters and then translating that understanding into work that is emotionally resonant, culturally informed, and operationally airtight. I’m known for bringing both the heart and the rigor: the big-picture narrative thinking and the meticulous structure that actually brings ideas to life.
My background in food marketing and the fine-dining world gave me a deep appreciation for sensory experience, detail, and the human connections behind every brand. Growing up bilingual and culturally immersed taught me to listen for nuance, the unspoken motivations, the subtle emotional hooks, the cultural moments where a brand can speak to someone in a way that feels almost private. That’s still the lens I use today to identify insights that cut through noise and make people feel understood.
Leadership-wise, I’m the person teams come to when something complex needs clarity, when a client needs a translator for their vision, or when we need to elevate scrappy into sterling. I’m proud of being someone who overdelivers, who protects the quality of the work, and who brings calm, warmth, and confidence to otherwise high-pressure processes.
What I’m most proud of in my career isn’t a single campaign, it’s the evolution. Starting as one person doing every marketing discipline alone, to now supporting creatives and guiding brands with intention, emotional intelligence, and strategic depth. I’m proud of the trust I’ve built with clients to get the job done to the fullest extent possible and the standard of excellence I bring into the room.
What sets me apart is the combination of cultural sensitivity, storytelling instinct, and operational discipline. I’m equal parts art and architecture, the narrative and the blueprint. I don’t just want work to perform; I want it to feel alive, to reflect human truth, and to make someone think, “That’s me. They get me.”
At the end of the day, my work is about connection: between brands and people, between strategy and creativity, between insight and emotion. An that’s what continues to inspire me: building things that resonate, endure, and make someone’s world feel just a little more understood.
What’s next?
Professionally, my future is at Arcana Academy. My long-term vision is to continue growing alongside the founders Lee Walters and Shane Hutton and to deliver just as much value when it comes to elevating clients, crafting meaningful strategy, and stewarding creative excellence. I’m excited about where advertising is headed from the continued reign of video storytelling and cinematic production quality to the intentional use of AI. I see AI not as a threat to human creativity, but as a powerful strategic tool. At Arcana, AI helps us with research, insight development, and especially proof of concept, the internal phase where we need to communicate abstract creative ideas clearly and quickly. It allows us to take what lives in the minds of our creatives and project it into a form clients can immediately visualize. That doesn’t replace the labor, artistry, or craft of the final work, which is always made by human hands (sometimes with the support of AI tools, always with the direction of human taste). Instead, AI enhances my role as an Account Director, helping me bridge the gap between vision and comprehension so our team can bring exceptional creative to life with even more clarity and efficiency.
By day, I’m a strategist, a communicator, and a guardian of clarity helping brands articulate who they are, why they matter, and how to speak to audiences in ways that feel precise, human, and culturally attuned. By night, I return to my roots as a writer. I’m continuing to work on short fiction that explores Italian identity, heritage, and the emotional threads that connect generations. My intention is to continue building my body of published work and to grow that creative muscle, not just for myself but because it makes me sharper, more empathetic, and more effective in my professional work as well.
In my personal life, I’m also looking forward to getting married next year to the love of my life, Max Reissig, someone who has been one of my best friends since I was twelve and has supported my writing and creative passions from the beginning. In a full-circle moment, he’s actually the one who introduced me to Arcana through his sister, who also works at the agency. It feels like my personal life and my professional life converged in the most organic way, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.
I’m also excited to continue refining my own voice as a tastemaker in food, writing, and advertising. I love setting the tone for what feels beautiful, thoughtful, and culturally relevant, and I want to keep sharing my perspective in ways that resonate with people whether that’s through storytelling, strategic insight, or simply showing others what inspired me.
Overall, my plans are rooted in growth, creativity, and connection: deepening my craft, contributing meaningfully to Arcana’s future, building a life with Max, and continuing to explore the stories and traditions that anchor me to who I am.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.arcanaacademy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arcana_academy/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arcana-academy/posts/?feedView=all
Image Credits
Both images shot by Arcana Academy.
