About Tom Fishburne and Marketoonist

It all started in a cubicle at General Mills in 2002.

As a new marketer who drew cartoons at Harvard Business School, Tom started sending cartoons to coworkers, poking fun at what we were all going through together.

Friends would pop their heads over the cubicle walls like prairie dogs to talk about the cartoons (and tease Tom that he would get fired for drawing them).

Drawing Marketoonist every week, Tom discovered the power of laughing at ourselves, helping us talk about the things that get in the way of doing our best work.

He kept drawing cartoons throughout his marketing career in the US and Europe and roles at HotelTonight (now part of Airbnb), Method, Nestlé, General Mills, and his own agency.

Twenty years later, Marketoonist is now read by half a million readers a week and has been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and The New York Times.

Drawing cartoons about marketing and business since 2002

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In his weekly Marketoonist cartoons and articles, Tom has chronicled every twist and turn in business for decades. Holding up the mirror helps us talk about the things we most need to talk about.

Official bio for events and media

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Tom Fishburne, creator of Marketoonist, is a keynote speaker who draws cartoons from deep business experience. He speaks worldwide on the power of humor to help us do our best work — by laughing together at what gets in the way.

Tom’s cartoon, Marketoonist, has lampooned the constantly changing business world since 2002. First published in the Harvard Business School student newspaper and later emailed from a General Mills cubicle, Marketoonist is now read by half a million weekly readers. Tom is a LinkedIn “Top Voice” with more than 400,000 followers.

He draws (literally and figuratively) from more than 20 years in the marketing trenches in the US and Europe. Tom was CMO at HotelTonight (now part of Airbnb), VP at Method, and managed brands for Nestlé and General Mills. He was also a digital marketing pioneer at iXL (now part of Razorfish).

Tom expanded Marketoonist into a creative studio that has developed award-winning campaigns for more than 200 businesses, including Google, DBS Bank, and Adobe.

He is the author of “Your Ad Ignored Here.” He also illustrated four bestselling business books with Deloitte: “Hone,” “Provoke,” “Detonate,” and “Work Disrupted.”

His cartoons have been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and the New York Times. They’ve appeared twice on billboard ads in Times Square and once helped win a Guinness World Record.

Tom works from a backyard cartoon studio north of San Francisco with his wife, Tallie, who is always the first to see his sketches.

VP of everything else

Tallie Fishburne

Tallie runs with everything to keep Tom at the drafting table or on a keynote stage. If you reach out about a keynote, a collaboration, or a cartoon license, there’s a good chance she will reply first.