Built to
scale.

2025–now: Director of AI at a creative agency, where he built the agency’s AI function from scratch. There was no AI function, team or playbook before him.

He built a RAG knowledge base with a custom ingestion pipeline: it converts decks, spreadsheets, PDFs and documents, verifies each conversion, breaks files into fact cards traced to their exact source, and answers questions with citations.

He built AI competitive analysis skills on Claude that compare a client’s site against competitors, either as a quick snapshot or a full-depth audit. One report covered 21 sites and ended in a 90-day action plan.

He built an agentic AI assistant on the Claude Agent SDK with MCP connectors. Each morning it reads his email and calendar, prioritizes the day, drafts replies for review and volunteers for up to three jobs.

He built a RAG knowledge base with a custom ingestion pipeline: it converts decks, spreadsheets, PDFs and documents, verifies each conversion, breaks files into fact cards traced to their exact source, and answers questions with citations.

His RAG system never answers from model memory, says plainly when something isn’t in the files, flags outdated or conflicting content, and requires a person to sign off before anything enters the index.

He built an agentic AI assistant on the Claude Agent SDK with MCP connectors. Each morning it reads his email and calendar, prioritizes the day, drafts replies for review and volunteers for up to three jobs.

His assistant turns a plain-language idea into a full storyboard, scene by scene and frame by frame, generates each image in its frame through an MCP connector, renders the board to an animatic, and is built so new tools can plug in at any point.

His assistant works overnight in read-only mode, never sends email on its own, changes priorities only with his approval, and turns every correction into a standing rule.

When a client wanted the agency working inside the client’s own platform instances, he verified that the agency’s AI platforms do not use inputted data for training, to show the client the agency’s tools were just as strong and their data was safe.

He keeps AI from communicating with clients without human review, and holds AI output and human work to the same verification standard.

He has led up to 11 people at once, plus outside offshore studios in Mexico and the UK that he hired, evaluated and managed.

Teams he has led include developers, QA, business analysts, video post-production, marketing, and email marketing specialists (certified Marketo specialists).

As an equity partner at The Mx Group, he ran two departments at the same time: Front-End Development and Video.

People he has managed describe him as the best manager they’ve had. He prioritizes his team’s well-being, work-life balance and career growth, and rewards hard work.

He believes in leading by example. He stays hands-on in the work instead of managing from a distance, and he holds himself to the same standards he sets for his team. He keeps learning so his team sees that growth never stops, and he takes on the hard problems himself first.

One of his working rules is to leave every process, tool and team running better than he found it, whether that means new technology or just asking why things are done a certain way.

His approach to problems is root cause first: calm the room, hear every side, find what actually happened, fix it carefully, and keep the team and client informed throughout.

He has started departments from scratch: front-end development and video at The Mx Group, and the AI function at his current agency.

2025–now: Director of AI at a creative agency, where he built the agency’s AI function from scratch. There was no AI function, team or playbook before him.

As an equity partner he authored SOWs and scoped and negotiated engagements from $100K to $1.5M.

In his current role he scopes, prices and writes SOWs for AI engagements.

He introduced a value-based pricing model that lifted margin 15%.

As an equity partner he authored SOWs and scoped and negotiated engagements from $100K to $1.5M.

He introduced a value-based pricing model that lifted margin 15%.

He personally ran post-project analysis of time and materials to find billing overages and process gaps.

Early in his career, two senior managers called his project estimates ludicrous. He backed them with the production team’s estimates and tracked hours from past projects, and the numbers held.

At The Mx Group, Miro created the video service line and ran its full post-production team: a senior motion graphics and 3D artist, a junior motion graphics artist and a senior video editor.

For video, he managed a bench of three freelancers, plus relationships with outside studios for extra capacity.

He owned the video service line’s business side: the pricing model, software procurement, budget management and P&L.

His video team produced high-end animated pieces connected to touch-screen devices, merging animation with HTML and JavaScript to create interactive displays.

Brown Bag BBQ: a custom-trained model and one master prompt system produced 50 story ads across the menu, brief to launch in about 10 days, with zero photo shoots, at over 80% less than a photo shoot.

The owner of Brown Bag BBQ said: "I can’t believe how detailed the food looks in the ads. I’d never be able to afford a shoot of this quality."

His work has won two Horizon Interactive Gold awards, a Horizon Interactive Best of Category, a Horizon Interactive Silver and a ’Finny’ Killer Content Award.

2004–2006: Web Developer at Webitects, building custom CMS work and serving as lead Flash developer and animator.

2006–2025: about 19 years at The Mx Group, growing from web developer to front-end developer, manager and director, and finally Agency Partner, Director of Video and Director of Front-End Development.

He built and ran one CMS platform across 100+ client sites, and designed its admin interface for usability and adoption.

He built and ran one CMS platform across 100+ client sites, and designed its admin interface for usability and adoption.

His first modular, CSS-driven approach used the same markup across three product-division websites, with CSS handling the visual differences. It grew into a modular practice that cut development time 30% company-wide.

He designs and builds websites himself, including a 35-page WordPress site for McGarr and a 23-page site for O’Brien Family Law, both structured for search engines and AI answer engines.

O’Brien Family Law went from 0 to 25 consultation requests in its first five months, with 30%+ more site traffic than the attorney’s previous firm site, and the 23-page site launched 30 days from brief.

His playbook for bringing AI into an organization: define the job, bring the people along, build what’s missing, set the guardrails, then lead with clients.

He sees fear, not technology, as the real bottleneck to AI adoption: how a company explains AI and brings it in decides whether people lean in or dig in.

His AI philosophy: leverage, not replacement. The advantage comes from the people using AI and how deeply they work it into everyday work.

He expects nearly all work to become prompt-driven, with the edge going to people who add their own point of view and taste on top of the tools.

At 12, he read a computer manual cover to cover and built a boot disk that skipped the operating system so a video game would have more memory, after a lot of trial and error.

Miro has 20+ years of experience across web development, video and AI, from developer to agency partner to Director of AI.

2024–now: founder of Lone Wolf Labs, his own business run alongside his full-time role. It is a marketing partner for small businesses covering strategy, brand, web, social and AI.

He is looking for a senior leadership role: leading people and an organization, with AI as the lever that makes the whole organization run better.

Off the clock he’s a gamer, a home chef and a dance dad who supports his daughter’s dance, and he still sketches and paints.

He’s looking for a role that uses the full range of his experience: the technical side, the people side and running service lines. He’s passionate about AI and wants to use it to transform a service line, or a whole agency.

He is looking for a senior leadership role: leading people and an organization, with AI as the lever that makes the whole organization run better.

His greatest strength is versatility. He isn’t a jack-of-all-trades; he goes deep in every area he takes on.

Miro has 20+ years of experience across web development, video and AI, from developer to agency partner to Director of AI.

His weakness: he holds himself to a very high standard and takes feedback to heart. That perfectionism has pushed him toward burnout at times, so he’s learned to treat feedback as information, fix the process behind it, and pace himself and his team.

On a high-profile client launch tied to an internal investor day, his team caught a problem with the deployment process during the soft launch, days ahead, and flagged and escalated it through multiple channels. On investor day the announcement went live hours early, and investors saw it before the planned reveal. The root cause analysis traced it back to the issue his team had flagged, backed by their written trail. His lesson: keep pushing until a problem gets the right attention, and keep receipts for every decision. It’s one of many hard moments that taught him to stay calm in the storm.

He’s proudest that he never stopped learning. Early on, during an internship, he was told he’d never be as good as another developer there, and he has kept learning ever since.

At 12, he read a computer manual cover to cover and built a boot disk that skipped the operating system so a video game would have more memory, after a lot of trial and error.

Why hire him: versatility. He brings hands-on skills plus partner-level agency and people-management experience, in one person.

He has owned every link in the chain: strategy, creative, web and development, AI systems, and client partnership, from scoping and pricing to owning the outcome.

In three to five years he sees himself at the executive level, closely involved in the larger organization’s decisions: shaping best-in-class offerings and building a culture of strong beliefs and loyalty.

With an underperforming team member, he addresses it directly, as a mentor: he’s clear about where things are falling short, asks whether they see it the same way, and works with them on a plan. Sometimes he pairs them with a teammate so they can learn from each other through peer development. He also checks whether their strengths have really been identified and put to use. If it still doesn’t improve, it can lead to a formal performance plan.

When executives disagree with him, he leads with facts. In his experience, opinion drives most unresolved disagreements, so he brings the data and helps people see what’s true, which is far more convincing than arguing a position.

Early in his career, two senior managers called his project estimates ludicrous. He backed them with the production team’s estimates and tracked hours from past projects, and the numbers held.

He stays current with AI constantly: reading, experimenting hands-on with new tools, and taking part in community cohorts.

He does best in a positive culture, but after 20+ years he has seen good and bad. When a culture is struggling, he digs in and works harder to bring management and people together.

People he has managed describe him as the best manager they’ve had. He prioritizes his team’s well-being, work-life balance and career growth, and rewards hard work.

He measures success by whether the team keeps moving forward and enjoys the challenges along the way. A challenge keeps the work interesting and fun, and praise from a client every now and then doesn’t hurt.

His full name is Miroslav Zugovic. He goes by Miro.

He is based in Crown Point, Indiana.

Education: BFA in Interactive Media & Design (Illinois Institute of Art) and BFA in Multimedia (International Academy of Design & Technology).

2025–now: Director of AI at a creative agency, where he built the agency’s AI function from scratch. There was no AI function, team or playbook before him.

2024–now: founder of Lone Wolf Labs, his own business run alongside his full-time role. It is a marketing partner for small businesses covering strategy, brand, web, social and AI.

Miro has 20+ years of experience across web development, video and AI, from developer to agency partner to Director of AI.

2024–now: founder of Lone Wolf Labs, his own business run alongside his full-time role. It is a marketing partner for small businesses covering strategy, brand, web, social and AI.

McGarr Service Corp (through Lone Wolf Labs, since 2023): he acts as their whole marketing department across strategy, brand and print, web, social and AI imagery, as their single point of contact.

The best way to reach him is by email at mzugovic@gmail.com.