
Jeff Weisling
President & Founding Partner
From Madison to Chicago. Growing up in Wisconsin, I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I received my BFA in graphic design. During my final two years at Madison, I was fortunate to study under renowned designer John Rieben, who convinced me to start my career in Chicago—landing my first design job at a company called High Sierra. I would spend the next 20+ years at the company and eventually became Vice President of Visual Communications. A family-owned manufacturer of bags, High Sierra allowed me to learn how to be a professional, collaborator, manager, and mentor.
Belts, wallets, ties, and more. Leaving High Sierra for a new adventure with a larger company, I found myself at Randa Accessories. Randa, the world’s largest men’s accessories company, has over 20 licensed brands across multiple categories which included gifting. Through my vision, my team and I were able to take an insignificant category and grow it exponentially into a seasonal powerhouse. Over six years, that gift business provided me with a crash course in storytelling, packaging design, retail presentation, and creating big ideas.
The Lightbulb moment! At this point, a thought popped into my head—were other companies taking the same creative approach that we honed here? Joining forces with Mark, whom I had worked with at Randa, we set out to build a different kind of agency that would utilize our unique skill set to create big ideas for companies and help them drive new business. Years in the making, Tandem Thinking brings together everything I learned from my early days in Madison to now.