Hartford Business Journal

3 4 C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 3 PETE Seizing Opportunity SENA With clients diverse as Lady Gaga and Google, entrepreneur Sena helps brands unlock digital creativity >> BY NORMAN BELL As a child of the 1980s growing up in Milford, Pete Sena had a clear vision of his future. "I wanted to make cool stuff on the internet," he said. Mission accomplished. Digital Surgeons LLC, the digital creative and marketing firm he started while still a student at UConn, has worked with accounts as diverse as Lady Gaga and U.S. Open Tennis, ESPN and MTV, Google and the former United Technologies Corp. Now at the age of 40, he's taken a step back from being the firm's CEO, handing leadership reins to Mike Raleigh, who had been senior vice president and head of success. Sena remains involved as Digital Surgeons' chief creative officer, but he's dividing his time shepherding a host of programs housed in the firm's most visible project — the District in New Haven. Re-imagining a 9-acre site that previously housed a CT Transit bus depot, the District is now home to dozens of startup businesses in a 108,000-square- foot coworking space with amenities that conjure images of Silicon Valley — or trendy parts of Brooklyn. At the District, Sena leads the weekly "Forward Obsessed" podcast that spreads his creative vision and approach. ere's also "District Studio," a production facility where Digital Surgeons makes its magic; "Find your Venn," an employment operation for creative artists; "Creative Wild," an internship program with an emphasis on helping diversify the creative arts field; and "ink FWD," a training program spreading creative approaches to businesses. Beyond the District, he's "entrepreneur in residence" at UConn, and serves as a fractional chief marketing officer, mostly for firms that have been clients, or in which he is an investor. Previously, he also served as a venture mentor at Yale. It's a heavy workload that requires a lot of juggling. Sena has had a lot of practice. An early start In describing his experiences growing up, Sena doesn't sugarcoat it: "I was a nerd." His father was a butcher and union leader; his mother worked in the school guidance office. His brother was headed for a career in finance. But Sena was moving to the beat of a different drummer. Like others of his generation, there were video games. Lots of video games. But he veered off the popular path. While his peers were consumed with the antics of rock stars, athletes and ingenues, Sena was focused on the projects of filmmaker William Lucas and tech icons Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. While his peers went to parties, he studied coding. Little did they know that he'd soon be teaching them coding. Like so many business success stories, the winds of change were at his back. It was the late 1990s, and the internet was everywhere. Money was cheap; investors were plentiful. e dot-com bubble was inflating on Wall Street. Everyone wanted a website, but the expertise to build one was limited. Sena seized the opportunity. Working from his dorm room in Storrs, he shied from designing club posters and ads for local bands to designing websites. It was both fun and profitable, but a call from a friend took Sena's operation to a new level. e friend had a corporate client that urgently needed a website. Could Sena handle the job? Soon, DirectTV had a website. Friends told friends, clients told clients, and Sena quickly had more work than he could handle. He hired a coder to help, then a designer and an administrative assistant. Digital Surgeons was off and running, in a fashion. For Sena, the future had opened up before him. He'd discovered what he describes as "the powerful black art of marketing." Working on a project for ule Roof Racks, he realized he Pete Sena Co-Founder/Entrepreneur Digital Surgeons LLC Education: UConn School of Business Age: 40 Continued on next page

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