Aaron Lee has 35+ years of entrepreneurship, marketing, creative and digital experience producing a wide range of successful brand and marketing programs and projects for some of the world’s top brands, including Orangetheory Fitness, Massage Envy, Disney and many more.
In 2001, Aaron founded iluma Agency, now a leader in the franchise marketing industry. Through its proprietary program, iluma Agency provides corporate, local digital and franchise recruitment marketing for franchise and multi-unit businesses. iluma Agency was recognized 4 times on the Inc5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America and has also been named on the Florida Trend and South Florida Business Journal’s Best Places to Work lists.
Aaron successfully exited iluma Agency through a merger with Peak Seven. Today, Aaron is focused on helping leaders find meaningful answers to their most important questions through his strategic growth coaching and marketing consultancy, SIXQ. Serving as a fractional CMO and Bloom Growth coach, Aaron brings his 30+ years of creative leadership experience to his client partners across a variety of industries and associations.
In addition to his coaching and consulting work, Aaron serves as Chairman of the Board at Mirth and Mischief Productions, an immersive and visionary fantasy entertainment company. This role reflects Aaron’s lifelong creative passion and expands his leadership into the world of experiential storytelling and themed entertainment, where he helps shape the strategies for engagement, leadership, and growth.
Aaron also continues to serve in his 15th consecutive year as a volunteer member leader in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).
He has served as EO’s U.S. East Regional Chair and currently chairs EO’s Global Organizational Strategy & Planning Council, guiding strategic alignment for over a dozen teams across the organization. A graduate of the EO Global Leadership Academy and Global Speakers Academy, Aaron is also a recipient of the EO “Living Beyond Yourself” and “Global Communications Chair” awards, recognizing his long-standing commitment to peer leadership and service.
This also follows previous regional roles as Member Experience Director, Area Director and previously as President of the South Florida Chapter.
After joining EO in 2010, he served the South Florida Board of Directors as the Communications and then Learning Chair for 6 years. He also oversaw communications and marketing for the 2013 EO Global University in Miami and for EO Nerve 2019 in Charleston. In these various roles and as a membership committee member of International Franchise Association, Aaron has been frequently interviewed and has delivered talks on the topics of entrepreneurship, marketing and scaling businesses.
Building on 35 year+ years of entrepreneurial, organizational and marketing leadership, Aaron is now focused on helping today’s leaders through his strategic growth coaching and marketing practice, SIXQ. Serving as a strategic growth coach with Bloom Growth and providing fractional CMO consulting, Aaron brings decades of entrepreneurial, organizational, digital, marketing and brand leadership experience to his client partners across a variety of industries.
- RadEO: #43 RadEO Aaron Lee – founder iluma Agency – Ross Drakes
- Case Study: Aaron Lee, iluma Agency, and WHY Discovery: https://bit.ly/3idRnBs
- “More Cheese, Less Whiskers” Podcast Interview with Dean Jackson: http://apple.co/2iuTYL4
- Owner’s Magazine – Why Amazon HQ2 Should Choose Miami: https://bit.ly/2GQmLzO
- Franchising World – Is your franchise marketing experiencing digital friction? https://bit.ly/2sbWsyN
- B2BNXT Interview: http://bit.ly/2j682Ie
- NPR “Sunshine Economy” Interview: http://bit.ly/2AK85Ue
- CEO Mojo Podcast Interview: http://bit.ly/2hbPq6R
- The Price of Business Podcast Interview: http://bit.ly/2BzbkLp
- https://www.citybiz.co/article/104179/south-florida-entrepreneur-leader-learns-from-son-launches-esports-tech-venture
- http://miamilaker.com/Business/TabId/113/ArtMID/608/ArticleID/4843/Miami-Lakes-businessman-Aaron-Lee-represents-South-Florida-at-UN-Goals-forum.aspx
- http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sofla-ugc-article-south-florida-business-groupjoins-un-sustai-2017-10-04-story.html
- http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/small-business/article144006824.html
- https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2017/05/05/local-entrepreneurs-look-to-europe-to-boost-south.html
- http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-gate/2016/11/alex-coren-university-of-miami-student-and-founder-of-start-up-healthcare-technology-company-wambi-has-earned-the-chance-to.html
- http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/careers/fl-people-on-the-move-0612-20160607-story.html
- http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-12-23/business/fl-entrepreneurs-organization-20131201_1_aaron-lee-eo-south-beach-wine
- https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/potmsearch/detail/submission/1755061/Aaron_Lee
- https://kaufmanrossin.com/blog/hiring-a-top-challenge-for-broward-businesses/
- https://www.eonetwork.org/southflorida/chapterpressreleases/entrepreneurs-organization-south-florida-places-9-companies-on-inc-5000-list-of-nations-fastest-growing-businesses
- https://www.inc.com/entrepreneurs-organization/how-i-doubled-sales-in-one-year.html
- http://southflorida.citybizlist.com/article/358399/illuminati-studios-celebrates-15th-anniversary-with-move-to-expanded-miami-lakes-offices
- https://www.nfib.com/content/playbook/insurance/how-to-survive-4-common-small-business-crises-64919/
- https://aquamobileswim.com/home/diana-goodwin-penny-hoarders-article-8-business-owners-knew-time-hire-first-employee/
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/illuminati-studios-acquires-solutioniq-180407404.html
Creative Director
Creative Director developing multiple full interactive video and gaming experiences for Disney at EPCOT for Motorola and RSNA over the course 4 years. These projects were direct collaborations with Disney Imagineering teams
Chief Marketing Officer
CMO developing and growing the brand and marketing for a startup SAP based ASP, HostLogic, across two continents and growing from a team of 5 to 125 in just two years
CEO & PROJECT LEAD
As CEO of iluma Agency, was tasked with designing, developing and deploying the North American intranet for MARS Inc including a custom CMS platform serving 10,000+ employees
CEO
After completing an agency acquisition in 2014 at iluma Agency, Aaron continued to provide critical brand and marketing programs with client partner Orangetheory Fitness, helping their brand expand from 60 to more than 1,000 locations worldwide
My latest project...
His prior experience also includes serving as Chief Marketing Officer for an international application service provider and more than 10 years in the role of Creative Director for advertising and design agencies, multimedia and post-production studios. Aaron obtained his degree in communication design.