By Rachel Hastings
04 June 2026
For Ari Krzyzek TEE’25, the path to running a successful branding and web design agency hasn’t always been a straight line.
“I’m a designer who doesn’t actually know how to draw,” she laughs. “But my superpower is understanding a client’s vision and turning it into a tangible reality.”
Krzyzek, the CEO and head of strategy of Chykalophia (pronounced see-ka-lo-fia), has spent the last 15 years honing that skill, while also building her business leadership toolkit from the ground up.
But despite a client book that includes Nike, Google, and Facebook, Krzyzek credits two stints at Tuck Executive Education with helping her “connect the final dot” and build the strategic know-how to take both her business and her client work to a new level.
From Bali to Bootstrapping a Startup
As a child in Bali, Indonesia, Krzyzek assumed that she would eventually work in the island’s booming tourism industry. But a teenage fascination with advertising led her to art school, followed by a day job at a major Bali hospitality group and a thriving freelance business. When Krzyzek moved to Chicago and married her husband, Peter, the two decided to merge their talents and launch their own agency.
“We were newlyweds learning how to be a couple, and suddenly we were also business partners and co-workers,” she recalls. “We had no idea how to run a business. We didn’t even know we needed a marketing budget!”
To fuel the agency’s growth, Krzyzek spent four years working as a digital designer at Sears Holdings by day while building Chykalophia by night. It was a period of "bootstrapping and grit" that taught her the realities of the corporate world, but her heart remained in entrepreneurship. In 2016, following the birth of her first child, she took the business full-time and hasn’t looked back.
The Tuck Transformation
As Chykalophia grew, Krzyzek realized that while she could build a beautiful website or a compelling brand, she wanted to see a business through a CEO’s eyes. The opportunity to do so came through a Tuck Executive Education program sponsored by MassMutual, followed soon after by the WBENC-Tuck Capstone Program.
“I had gone through other accelerators, but Tuck was different,” Krzyzek explains. “It opened my eyes to business strategy in a way I hadn’t seen before. I used to see operations, marketing, and branding as individual parts. At Tuck, I finally saw how they fit together as a whole through the lens of strategy, which has really changed how I approach my clients’ businesses.”
“I had gone through other accelerators, but Tuck was different. It opened my eyes to business strategy in a way I hadn’t seen before.”
One particular influence was Professor Ramon Lecuona Torras. “The way he broke down how to actually ’win’ in a market was so easy to digest,” she says. “I recently did a podcast where the host asked me, ‘You didn’t go to business school, so how do you have this much business acumen?’ I said ‘No, but I did still learn at Tuck.’”
Paying It Forward
Krzyzek’s time at Tuck has also influenced her vision for the future of Chykalophia. The agency now operates on two tracks: fractional CMO & CTO services with an implementation team for established companies ($2M–$20M in revenue) and a "done-with-you" model for younger startups. The goal is to grow with the smaller businesses until they are ready for the full-scale agency experience.
Beyond the agency, Krzyzek has become a vocal advocate for women in business, frequently appearing on panels and mentoring first-time founders. It’s a role she initially shied away from until a mentor challenged her to speak on three panels in one year.
“As a creative, I just wanted to stay behind the screen,” she admits. “But I realized that leadership isn’t about me; it’s about the audience. It’s about showing up and letting people know they are safe to share their challenges.”
Her top piece of advice for fellow entrepreneurs? Step away from the business to work on the business.
“Don’t hesitate to take the time for an accelerator or an executive program,” Krzyzek says. “Especially if you’re a creative entrepreneur like me—many of us fall into running a business, and taking the time to understand what that really means is so important.”
