Draft:Matt Rowean

Matt Rowean (born August 6, 1982, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American artist, creative director, and entrepreneur. He is a Partner and Chief Creative Officer at MATTE Projects.

Biography
Matt Rowean graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in Painting and Communication Design. He also participated in the RISD Pre-college program. After completing his studies in 2004, Rowean relocated to New York City.

In 2008, he left Strategic Group and co-founded RJW (later rebranded as JWALK) alongside Doug Jacob and Charli Walk. The company worked with brands such as Lacoste, David Yurman, Equinox, and ABC. He oversaw the brand identity development of the seafood restaurant Catch, which expanded from a flagship in New York City to an international company with locations in L.A., Dubai, and Playa del Carmen.

Rowean shifted focus to fine art and other non-advertising pursuits after leaving RJW in 2011 due to a two-year non-compete. During this time, he worked on the branding of the Full Moon Festival, which led to joining Brett Kincaid and Max Pollack at MATTE Projects, helping to evolve it from a concert production entity to a holding company composed of several developed businesses based in New York. MATTE Projects is a full-service 360 creative services agency operating in entertainment (music & events), feature film production, and has its own venue "HERO".

In 2019, Rowean was among Emmy Nominees for Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened.

During his tenure as Chief Creative Officer, MATTE won several Clio awards for their campaign work with Cartier.

MATTE Projects
Founded in 2011 by Brett Kincaid, Max Pollack. Matthew Rowean joined a year later and helped evolve MATTE Projects into a creative agency and production company known for organizing high-profile events like New York City's Full Moon Music Festival and Rihanna's Met Gala after-party. The company operates in cities like New York and Mexico City, and has worked with clients such as Tom Ford, Google, and Dom Pérignon. Besides events, MATTE Projects offers content creation, digital solutions, and experiential design, working with brands such as KITH, Adidas, Amazon, Cartier, and YSL and talent such as Kanye West, James Blake and Jay-Z.

MATTE Projects also operates in the fashion industry, specializing in fashion events, live fashion show capture, campaigns, and directing fashion films for brands such as Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Alexander Wang, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Puma and other brands. In 2012, MATTE launched Full Moon, a boutique music festival at the South Street Seaport. Full Moon later moved to Governors Island and became a 10,000-person festival.

The company's collaborations include The Macallan, KITH, Cartier, Audemars Piguet, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Prada, Marriott, Apple, Airbnb, and more. Their work for Cartier was recognized by Clio Awards.

In 2024 MATTE partnered with PUMA to create their Forever Faster campaign, and is PUMA's biggest marketing investment yet – it's the brand's first worldwide brand campaign in 10 years with the objective to strengthen their positioning as the Fastest Sports Brand in the world.

The company produced Can't Stop Won't Stop: A Bad Boy Story. The film won the Hollywood Documentary Award at the 2017 Hollywood Film Awards. In 2019, company co-produced the Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and initiated "La Luna," an eco-friendly summer party. Through the pandemic, they created the documentary "Hell Of A Cruise", available Peacock, featuring the early spread of COVID-19 on cruise ships. The film focuses on the Diamond Princess cruise, which in January 2020 unknowingly became a hotspot for the virus, transforming a luxury voyage into a crisis.