Denise Clifton started Tandemvines Media in 2012 because she was inspired to tell a story — a story about resilience and restaurants and the people who devote their lives to keeping them going.

As a journalist, she’d built her career around showcasing the people and events driving the news every day. But while diving deeper into this particular story, which grew to become a book, Denise discovered a passion for helping individuals and organizations tell their own, more personal stories through all sorts of media formats and across a variety of industries.

Since then, Denise has been proud to partner with many people to celebrate and share their stories. Her work has taken her into the tiny basement of a family’s century-old restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown and through a vast Alaska Airlines maintenance hangar. She’s studied the documents of a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and edited the life story of a pioneering Seattle architect — and even savored an Iraqi feast in suburban Seattle. In all these stories, she’s found that the people at their heart share a common desire to use their work to make a difference in their business, their community or the world. 

Before starting Tandemvines Media, Denise worked for nearly 20 years as an award-winning journalist and art director leading news visual-storytelling teams at the Seattle Times — giving her a foundation in leading collaborative projects that she continues to build on.

She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!), and was among 19 journalists worldwide selected for the yearlong John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists at Stanford University in 2004. Learn more about Denise’s career and follow her on LinkedIn.

Why “Tandemvines”?

“Tandemvines” sprouted on a tandem bicycle in California wine country and the name is rooted in the joint adventure that Denise shares with Christopher Cellars, her husband and partner in all things. Tandemvines is also a reminder of the guiding principle that great storytelling is always rooted in partnership. All the projects in our portfolio were possible through working in tandem with countless talented and passionate storytellers.