Cosa Nuestra

Mal Mango is a creative studio led by two founders with two decades of combined work across sports, brand, nonprofit, and entertainment — from U.S. Soccer Federation, DC United, and the Washington Spirit to Apple, Meta, Nike, and the Obama Foundation. We build work that shows up with cultural fluency, strategic clarity, and craft you can feel.

We are bicultural by design. Our work lives where music, food, fashion, sport, and the broader cultural conversation meet. And the work we are most proud of comes from partnerships where ideas can be tested, pushed, and rebuilt together.

If it's got heart and ambition — we're in.

Our Team

Mal Mango is built around a simple idea: every project deserves a team assembled specifically for it.

Javier and Emily lead every partnership, supported by a deep network of trusted collaborators who are brought in based on what the work needs. We build custom teams because the right people for one project aren't always the right people for the next — and we all deserve a team that's been matched to the work, not the other way around.

JAVIER FERNÁNDEZ

Co-Founder, Creative Director

Guatemalan-American creative producer and brand strategist. Previously led work at U.S. Soccer Federation, DC United and the Washington Spirit. Specializes in cultural storytelling, production, and partnership-content.

Co-Founder, Managing Director

EMILY BRAUNER

Marketing strategist with experience leading work for Apple, Meta, Nike, the Obama Foundation, the LA Dodgers Foundation, and Hyatt Hotels. Specializes in messaging frameworks, research-driven discovery, and campaign strategy.

What we believe

These are the principles we build around — and the commitments we make to every partnership we take on. We are direct about how we work and honest about what we will and won't take on, because the best ideas come from partners who want to test them, push them, and rebuild them with us.

  • We build content for audiences on their own terms — in their language, their humor, their context, and their references. Not translated from something else. Not reworked from an English original. Built for the audience from the very first idea.

  • The work we are most proud of comes from clients who treat us as collaborators — who bring us into the room early, push back on our ideas, and stay in the exploration with us. We build better work with partners who want to build it together.

  • We reward craft, not years on a ladder. Our team is built around what people can actually make and do — and we hire with the same standard we hold ourselves to.

  • Every recommendation we make is grounded in real audience understanding — not vibes, not assumptions, not "we think this will work." We treat research as a creative tool, not a checkbox. It is how we pressure-test our own instincts, surface the angles we would have missed, and build work that earns its place with the audience it is trying to reach.