Multicultural Marketing News – Women’s History Month Profiles

Multicultural Marketing News March 2021

March is Women’s History Month

Meet the women leaders from the Expert companies featured on multicultural.com. Click on each photo below to learn about each company/organization in our online Source Book of Multicultural Experts directory and Speakers Showcase or to contact them directly.

• Karen Sinisi, Director, Sales and Marketing, Ethnic Technologies
• Lauren Wesley Wilson, Founder & CEO, ColorComm Media Group and ColorComm, Inc.
• Nina L. Kaufman, Esq., Business Exponential
• Jeanine Kim, Operations Director, AAAZA, Inc.
• Tiffany R. Warren, Executive Vice President, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Sony Music Group
• Claudine Waite, AdvancingDiversity.org’s Head of Partner Development, MediaVillage
• Adriana Waterston, Senior Vice President, Insights and Strategy, Horowitz Research
• Arva R. Rice, President and CEO, New York Urban League
• Liz Castells, CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, INFUSION
• Michele Cordoba, Founding Director, Vision Strategy and Insights
• Ashleigh Williams, Senior Research Director​, C+R Research
• Brenda Hurley, Executive Vice President and Managing Partner, C+R Research
• Danielle Austen, Managing Partner, CEO, fluent360
• Selina Guo, Planning Director, ADMERASIA
• Annie Leal, VP of Content, H CODE
• Gloria Constanza, Partner, Chief Contact Strategist, d expósito & Partners, llc
• Lisa Skriloff, President, Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc.

Karen Sinisi, Director, Sales and Marketing, Ethnic Technologies

Karen has extensive knowledge and experience in Multicultural Marketing as well as broad-based Direct Marketing. She has worked with clients at Ethnic Technologies for ten years, helping them to reach critical multicultural markets. She has also been instrumental in developing “cultural competence” strategies for those same clients. Karen has 25 years of previous experience in marketing, client service and management. She was a member of the Board Of Directors for the West Coast Chapter of the Florida Direct Marketing Association. She also held the position of Newsletter Editor for that organization. She holds a BA in Anthropology and Sociology from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. Specialties: Multicultural Marketing, Language Preference Marketing, Gender Marketing, Hispanic and Spanish Language Marketing, Multicultural Data Appends, Direct Marketing

View Karen’s full Speaker profile here.

View full company profile here.

Lauren Wesley Wilson, Founder & CEO, ColorComm Media Group and ColorComm, Inc.

Lauren Wesley Wilson is an Award –Winning Diversity and Inclusion Strategist. Lauren currently serves as Founder and CEO of ColorComm Media Group and ColorComm, Inc. In 2011, Lauren founded ColorComm, Inc., the nation’s leading women’s platform addressing diversity and inclusion across the communications, marketing, media, advertising, and digital arena. Lauren has provided 40,000+ professionals with the tools and resources to advance, has secured 500+ jobs for ColorComm Members, and has worked with Fortune 500 companies on their D&I strategy. Lauren has been recognized by PR Week’s 50 Most Powerful in PR, Ad Age ‘Women to Watch’, PR Week’s 40 under 40 Award, The Root 100, New York Women in Communications, among many others. In 2017, Lauren was selected to serve on the Glass Lions Jury at Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes, France. Prior to ColorComm, Lauren worked in political communications serving as the Communications Director for Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and as a Media Strategist/Media Booker for President Barack Obama’s Reelection Campaign. Following the Campaign, Lauren worked as a Communications Strategist at the prestigious crisis firm Qorvis/MSL overseeing media strategy and crisis communications for international governments and consumer brands. Lauren graduated from Spelman College with a B.A. in Political Science and from Georgetown University with an M.A. in Communications.

View Lauren’s full Speaker profile here.

Nina L. Kaufman, Esq., Business Exponential

Nina L. Kaufman, Esq. is an SBA Small Business Champion and Entrepreneur.com legal expert—not your ordinary business attorney. She’s a Forbes Magazine Influencer (on Entrepreneurship), a Mets fan by marriage, and former stand-up comic. She’s also a sought-after professional speaker and frequent media resource who has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Crain’s NY Business, Mashable, HuffingtonPost.com, MSNBC’s Your Business, and Fox′s Good Day NY. But Nina knows – from both sides of the negotiating table – that building a real business is about more than just making “today money.” It’s about personal and financial freedom, and structuring your business to achieve that goal. That’s why she established Business Exponential and the Beyond Solo Academy — to offer online business courses and coaching to business professionals and expertise-based service businesses who want to end the overload, earn what they deserve, and enjoy their life in the process.

Nina received her Bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College (cum laude), her Master’s degree from the London School of Economics & Political Science, and her law degree from Boston University. For more, visit https://BusinessExponential.com

View Nina’s full Speaker profile here.

Jeanine Kim, Operations Director, AAAZA, Inc.

Jeanine Kim’s entire career has been devoted to creating market opportunities in the multicultural marketplace for Fortune 500 clients and clients from overseas. She has developed multiple marketing strategies in the areas of advertising, public relations, direct marketing, telemarketing, and community relations. Jeanine’s strongest skill is implementing global brands as local integrated brands. Jeanine also founded AAAZA, a multicultural advertising agency in 2001 to create a unique marketing solution for clients. Her former clients include Citibank, MetLife, MoneyGram, Wells Fargo, Proctor & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, MCI, Kia Motors America, Northwest Airlines, and many more. For more information on AAAZA visit https://multicultural.com/experts/aaaza-inc/

View full company profile here.

Tiffany R. Warren, Executive Vice President, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Sony Music Group

Tiffany R. Warren is the Executive Vice President, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Sony Music Group. In this role, she is responsible for leading the Company’s strategies to continue driving an inclusive culture and equitable workplace. Tiffany also serves as President of ADCOLOR, a non-profit organization whose mission is to celebrate and champion diversity in the creative industries. Since founding it in 2005, she has launched the ADCOLOR Awards, Conference, and FUTURES program. Through ADCOLOR, Tiffany has deeply impacted – and has been widely recognized for – the progress and direction the creative industries have taken around diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I). In addition to her roles at Sony and ADCOLOR, Tiffany serves on the boards of several organizations including the Ad Council, GLAAD, Brotherhood|Sister Sol, American Advertising Federation, MAKERS and The Ghetto Film School. She is a Trustee of Bentley University. She previously held the title of SVP, Chief Diversity Officer at Omnicom Group. For more than 10 years, she led the strategy that supported Omnicom’s vision to be a world class, benchmark company for sustainable DE&I and aligned this critical practice with the company’s business objectives and clients’ results.

View the most recent AdColor eblast via MMRNews here and learn more at adcolor.org.

Claudine Waite, AdvancingDiversity.org’s Head of Partner Development, MediaVillage

Claudine Waite has joined MediaVillage as AdvancingDiversity.org’s New Head of Partner Development at the B2B marketing and education company. “Claudine’s extensive expertise in multicultural marketing, data-driven research and producing diversity events in-house and on the agency side will be invaluable to the continued evolution of AdvancingDiversity.org and the Advancing Diversity Hall of Honors,” said MediaVillage founder Jack Myers. Prior to being named AdvancingDiversity.org’s Head of Partner Development, Waite was Director of Content Marketing in the Conferences and Committees division at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Before the ANA, she worked at Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, leading research, consumer insights and content strategy, and while at Time Inc., led brand-building programs for a multitude of clients. Waite holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Africana Studies from Vassar College.

View full company profile here.

Adriana Waterston, Senior Vice President, Insights and Strategy, Horowitz Research

Adriana is a research junkie with a flair for finding the story behind the statistics, teasing the meaning out of the measurement, and revealing the faces behind the facts.  A seasoned quantitative and qualitative market researcher with expertise on consumers and their attitudes towards their media tools, Adriana has moderated hundreds of groups and conducted in-home ethnographic research on a bevy of topics. Adriana oversees all of Horowitz’s millennial, multicultural and Latino research endeavors and is well-known for her leadership in this space.

View full company profile here.

Arva R. Rice, President and CEO, New York Urban League

Arva Rice is a passionate community leader who has dedicated herself to creating pathways to success for young people with a focus on girls and women. Arva currently serves as President & CEO of the New York Urban League. The New York Urban League is leading the way underserved African-Americans are educated, employed and empowered across the 5 boroughs. For the past 100 years we’ve inspired, influenced and ignited over 1 million black people to achieve their highest aspirations. Arva is a member of the Women’s Forum, Greater New York Chapter of The Links Incorporated, a Commissioner for the NYC Equal Employment Practices Commission and Trustee at First Corinthians Baptist Church. Arva is a 2013-2014 Annie Casey Fellow, a national fellowship for government and nonprofit leaders focused on supporting innovation solutions for children. Arva graduated from the Northwestern University. She currently lives in Harlem.

View Arva’s full Speaker profile here.

View full company profile here.

Liz Castells, CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, INFUSION

Liz Castells-Heard is CEO and Chief Strategy Officer of INFUSION, a full-service Multicultural agency that provides Fortune 500 Clients best-in-class strategic leadership and consistent results, known for their analytics, marketing strategies, first-in-kind thinking, and cultural narratives that compel ROI-Powered ideas. Liz is an industry force with a Stanford MBA, finance and psychology training, ‘tell it like it is’ magnetic style, and nearly 40 years of General market, Client, and Multicultural experience including DDB NY, Campbell’s, Oriflame, andConill/Saatchi. Her strategic acumen and foresight has helped many companies like McDonald’s, Toyota, Charter Communications, and Safeway grow their businesses. Her inspiration and demand for excellence galvanizes her team, and creates campaigns that earn ROI, awards and her “Our Fearless Leader” moniker. Founded in 1998, Liz envisioned an ethnic agency making business results the priority and strategy the roadmap to creative solutions, with full immersion in a client’s business – a place run with heart, candor, free of egos, BS or layers; and a multi-disciplined strategic team for combustible ideation. This vision led her to trademark Transculturation™ – a business-building model for effective cultural integration that guides companies to easily understand and profitably integrate Multiculturalacross all the 5 P’s, working closely with their internal departments and agency partners. The model factors in both ethnic needs and GM commonalities to assure the right metrics, targets, initiatives and strategies to ultimately createa mix of unique, universal and cross-cultural Marcomm efforts across all platforms. Tenacious in business, Liz is compassionate, caring and fiercely loyal. Her vision drives betterment in knowledge, skill-set and quality, and she’s consistently tapped as a speaker, for press commentary, and industry leadership awards. Liz’s top personal cause is empowerment through education, which she believes is the equalizer to opportunity. Liz is a 7-month preemie ‘born with her brain and mouth on overdrive’ with the survival instinct and energy of a Cuban exile (and reared on café); her fearlessness fed by a 350-ft. bungee jump in Africa; her optimism from living around the world, her maternal pride from 7 god-children, and her free spirit fueled by her husband Alan of 36 years. Liz lives shuffling between her offices in LA and NY and new Scottsdale homestead with 1,000s of saguaros and her German Shepard 100 pound ‘babies’. Her personal motto: “Anything is possible. Life’s hurdles strengthen us, small moments feed our joy, and dreams propel us to fly to that next level.

View Liz’s full Speaker profile here.

View full company profile here.

Michele Cordoba, Founding Director, Vision Strategy and Insights

As we kick off Women’s History Month, the founders of Vision Strategy and Insights would like to highlight those who are making history every day: women voters.  In the 2020 Presidential and 2021 Georgia Senate special elections, women once again voted at higher rates than men, and considering the record turnout in both of these elections, women cast more votes than ever before.

Women of color are leading the charge. Black women, the most active voting bloc in the country, represent 15 million votes. Women of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent are the fastest growing group of voters. And Latina women not only vote at higher numbers than Latino men, they often influence friends and family to vote along with them.

Women have mobilized, phone banked, marched, called their elected officials, and educated their families, friends, and neighbors. They are making their voices heard in all possible ways and putting their stamp on the future of this country. Women voters, we salute you! – Michele Cordoba, Founding Director, Vision Strategy and Insights

Michele Cordoba is a creative and experienced researcher and marketer with particular expertise in consumer/voter engagement and message development. She is one of the founding partners of the women- and minority owned Vision Strategy and Insights, a full-service multicultural marketing and strategy firm with a unique specialty in civic engagement and issue advocacy research. She is proud to have worked with campaigns, independent expenditures and nonprofits to raise the voices of women voters in local, state and national elections, particularly voters of color. Prior to forming Vision Strategy and Insights, Michele managed her own multicultural marketing and consulting firm, specializing in consumer insights, strategic planning and creative development, particularly in the area of political and cause-related marketing.  She is a skilled writer and moderator in both Spanish and English. Michele also brings a wealth of experience in the Spanish-language television industry, having led the consumer marketing and promotions efforts for both Univision and Telemundo stations. In this capacity, she won three Emmy awards and helped deliver the highest news ratings in the Los Angeles market, regardless of language. She holds an undergraduate degree in Spanish from Scripps College and a Masters degree in International Business from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband.

View Michele’s full Speaker profile here.

View full company profile here.

Ashleigh Williams, Senior Research Director​, C+R Research

Ashleigh Williams is a Senior Research Director at C+R Research. Her own cultural context and expertise illuminates her research style and enables empathic connections with consumers of various backgrounds. In addition, she helps spearhead the CultureBeat PULSE ezine at C+R and holds experience working with multicultural teens, harnessing her passion to uncover the thoughts and desires of the next generation. Prior to joining C+R Research, Ashleigh worked as a Design Strategist at BrandImage Schawk Inc. She also spent 4 years collaborating with a variety of research and design firms (Kelton Global Research, Insight Product Development, and Webb de Vlam to name a few) to conduct qualitative research projects for Fortune 100 clients, Ashleigh holds her BFA in Industrial Design from the University of Illinois Chicago.

View Ashleigh’s full Speaker profile here.

View full company profiles here and here.

Brenda Hurley, Executive Vice President and Managing Partner, C+R Research

Brenda Hurley is an Executive Vice President and Managing Partner at C+R Research. She has more than 25 years’ experience providing custom research solutions for her clients. Brenda’s career has been mostly focused on developing quantitative research solutions for her clients, spanning online and offline methodologies and various consumer and shopper targets. More recently, a significant portion of her time is spent consulting with clients on large strategic initiatives and solving unique business and research issues involving multi-modal approaches and incorporating non-traditional methodologies.  

Brenda also oversees C+R’s multicultural division, CultureBeat. Her passion for understanding different consumer cultures and perspectives has been a common thread in both her professional and personal lives. Having traveled to 50 countries and spent over two decades conducting research with multicultural consumers in the US, Brenda is often sought out to help clients better understand how to connect with specific consumer segments. Brenda’s clients represent a wide variety of industries including consumer packaged goods, durable goods, entertainment, retail and the restaurant industry.

View full company profiles here and here.

Danielle Austen, Managing Partner, CEO, fluent360

Danielle Austen is the founder of fluent360, a full-service advertising agency that acts as a single-source solution for its clients in developing communications plans for African American, Asian American, US Hispanic and LGBTQ consumers. Danielle’s twenty-plus years in marketing and advertising have included both corporate and agency experience. From Nordstrom to Sony to Nissan and State Farm – to name just a few – Danielle has helped grow brands, while making the world a more inclusive place through messaging and imagery. Currently the Chair of the American Advertising Federation’s (AAF) Mosaic Council, she also serves on the National Board of Directors for the AAF and a start-up tech firm, CRVIII.com. Danielle lives on the south side of Chicago with her husband and two kids.

View full company profile here.

Selina Guo, Planning Director, ADMERASIA

Selina Guo leads the strategic planning department and the internal research unit at ADMERASIA. Selina’s creative design background and working experience in London, Hong Kong and New York have given her an international perspective, and a keen eye for today’s connected and influential global Asian consumers. Her areas of expertise include helping Fortune 500 brands connect with the growing Asian American consumers in the U.S., partnering with U.S. brands that aim to expand their business to Asia, and helping emerging brands in Asia or with Asian-heritage to refine their strategy for the U.S. general market. In her 13 years of experience, Selina has worked with clients across multiple industry sectors, such as British Museum, Shangri-la Hotel, State Farm, Citibank, MassMutual, Humana, Nissan, SK-II, L’Oréal, Godiva, Hennessy, Dunhill, Halstead and China Communications Construction Company and more. Selina is also dedicated in collaborating with brands and community organizations to advocate and advance Asian American’s representation in the mainstream. For more information about the company profile, please click here

View full company profile here.

Annie Leal, VP of Content, H CODE

Annie Leal, born and raised in Mexico discovered her passion for creating content at a young age. Since then, she has gained experience in multicultural media and brings 7+ years of experience in content creation to the Hispanic audience across all platforms in an engaging, entertaining, emotional and educational way. In her former role as Head of Content at mitú, Leal oversaw the editorial, social, creative, and production teams. She was instrumental in the creation of the brand’s voice, growing its audience and finding solutions and products for other brands to be a part of. She strongly believes in spotlighting and sharing diverse stories inside diverse audiences, such as what being part of the LGBTQ+ community or the disability community means for multicultural audiences. Currently, at H Code, Leal has taken the lead in paving the way for new platform development for brands to reach their intended multicultural audience through H Code Studio.

View full company profile here.

Gloria Constanza, Partner, Chief Contact Strategist, d expósito & Partners, llc

In her position as Partner and Chief Contact Strategist, Gloria is responsible for the oversight of all media – from conventional to digital to non-conventional. She guides the media strategy and investment teams in developing action-driven and leading edge Hispanic media strategies and campaigns for DEX clients. Gloria has 30 years of advertising experience in the Hispanic Market and she has led some of the most successful media efforts in this industry.  Throughout her career, Gloria has managed multiple accounts and categories ranging from AT&T, AARP, Sears, Bank of America, Campbell’s Soup, Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Mazda, McDonald’s, Amica Mutual Insurance and Tajín Mexican Seasoning. Gloria has received numerous media Awards in the area of strategic planning and best media innovations as well as several industry awards. In 2008, she was selected Executive Media Planner of the year. Gloria is a member of the 4A’s Media Measurement Committee. In her position she brings the Hispanic Market perspective as it pertains to research and data/analytics that impact media measurement in the advertising industry.

View full company profile here.

Lisa Skriloff, President, Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc.

Following successful positions as Director of Marketing at The New York Times and Sales Rep/Editor of Hispanic Age/Caballero Spanish Radio, Lisa Skriloff founded Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc. (MMR) in 1994 to serve as an authoritative business resource to corporations, agencies and journalists, providing information and referrals to multicultural and diversity experts. MMR is a consultancy, B2B public relations and marketing firm and editorial content supplier as publisher of The Source Book of Multicultural Experts, MMRNews and a Speakers Showcase. The company’s latest effort is the relaunch of multicultural.com where experts can now upload their own content to the directory, job openings to the Career Page and upcoming webinars and conferences to the Events page. Lisa is also a travel writer and founding editor of Multicultural Travel News. Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc. is a WBENC certified woman-owned business, and also certified by New York City and New York State.

View Lisa’s full Speaker profile here.

View full company profile here.

The women featured in this newsletter were selected from among those listed in our Speakers Showcase and Experts Directory on multicultural.com. Would you like to see your company POV/event featured in our next theme newsletter? If you are interested in including your paragraph and logo in our next issue of Multicultural Marketing News/MMRNews ($425), please visit here or contact Lisa Skriloff at 212-242-3351 or Lisa@multicultural.com. Participation is free to organizations featured on multicultural.com. Sign up here to feature your organization/company on multicultural.com.

Next Issues:

April 2021 Newsletters

Multicultural Communications Month

Deadline for reservations: Apr 5^th 

Deadline for copy Apr 8^th 

Save the Dates for Key 2021 Multicultural & Diversity Conferences + events

Deadline for reservations: Apr 5^th 

Deadline for copy Apr 8^th 

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