David Oakley is the co-creative director and founding partner of BooneOakley in Charlotte, NC. Established in 2000, current clients include CarMax, State Farm, Mizuno and Bloom. BooneOakley was just named 2009 Southeast Small Agency of the Year by Advertising Age.

David's advertising career began in 1987 in New York at Y&R as a copywriter, where he crafted campaigns for Certs, Dr. Pepper and AT&T. From there, he went to TBWA Chiat/Day to help develop the Absolut Vodka campaign --voted Ad Age's "Top Twenty Ad Campaigns of the Twentieth Century."

After 7 years in the Big Apple, David decided to get back to his Carolina roots. In 1997, David and John Boone opened a satellite office of The Martin Agency in Charlotte. There, David served as Associate Creative Director for Wrangler, Alltel, Saab and the Charlotte Hornets.

Oakley and Boone were named "Hot Creative Team" by Creativity magazine in 2000. This made both of them quite cocky and they decided to start their own shop, despite being told by a prominent New York headhunter that two creatives could not run a successful agency and that they were "destined to fail." They have spent every day in the last 10 years trying to prove her wrong.

In addition to winning a Little League MVP Trophy in 1973, David has won a bunch of international advertising awards including The One Show, Cannes, Communication Arts and Clios. His work has been featured on ABC's "Best Commercials" and on his mom's refrigerator.

David is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. Hobbies include collecting lunch boxes and obsessing about stupid things. He and his wife, Claire, are raising two teenage children and a yellow Lab named Yogi.