Communications

Wonder Woman in Business, Serena Mastin

Serena Mastin

Serena Mastin's journey is a testament to the indomitable human spirit, serving as a beacon of hope for those grappling with self-limiting beliefs. Her life began in the shadow of witness protection and unfolded in the tumultuous landscape of foster care, where she navigated the treacherous waters of nine different homes. The challenges she faced led her down a path of teenage addiction and homelessness, culminating in the heart-wrenching tragedy of her husband's suicide. Despite these harrowing trials, Serena's story is one of triumphant ascent.

What truly sets Serena apart is her unwavering strength, resilience, and authenticity. Her career spanning over two decades in the corporate world is a testament to her unyielding determination. She weathered setbacks, repeatedly climbing back to executive leadership roles within Fortune 500 companies. In 2013, she boldly carved her own path by founding Pulse Marketing Inc., a venture that has since flourished into an award-winning marketing and advertising agency. Serena's agency excels in creating content that forges meaningful connections between people and brands, utilizing purposeful graphics, thought-provoking web designs, and heart-touching advertising campaigns.

Beyond her entrepreneurial acumen, Serena has penned her compelling life story in a memoir titled "Exposed: You Can't Heal When You Hide." In this raw narrative, she delves into her experiences with assault, addiction, homelessness, infidelity, mental health challenges, and, ultimately, profound healing. Her memoir is a powerful testament to the human capacity for resilience and growth.

Serena's story resonates deeply with audiences, offering a thought-provoking reminder that challenges can be confronted with passion and purpose. She has dedicated her life to personally and professionally empowering others, demonstrating that self-limiting beliefs can be shattered and replaced with unwavering self-compassion. Serena's journey is a living testament to the power of the human spirit and inspires all who encounter it.

Serena Mastin


In a stunning memoir that speaks to the power of vulnerability and the resilience of the human spirit, Serena Mastin shares her journey of healing. Born into a satanic cult led by her biological father, Serena's life was marked by unimaginable trauma and adversity, including childhood sexual abuse, witness protection, foster care, teenage addiction, self-harm, homelessness, eating disorders, and infidelity.

Through it all, Serena demonstrates remarkable strength and courage, baring her soul and exposing the most intimate, raw, and explicit details of her life experiences. With honesty and grace, she invites you into her world, revealing the transformative power of confronting our truths and breaking free from the chains of shame and guilt.

With exquisite prose and profound insights, this memoir is a book that will stay with you long after you've finished reading it. It's a testament to the human capacity for resilience and a powerful call to action for anyone who has ever felt trapped by their past.

Ultimately, Serena's story is a story of hope and redemption. It shows us that, no matter how dark our past, we all have the power to overcome our demons and find healing. A must-read for anyone seeking inspiration and empowerment, this memoir is a stunning reminder that, when we bring our stories out of the darkness and into the light, we create healing not just for ourselves, but for others as well.

Connect with Serena

Serena Mastin

Author | Speaker | Entrepreneur

President, Pulse Marketing Inc.

909.965.1111 

Pulse Marketing Website: heartofcreative.com

Author Website: serenamastin.com

Amazon: https://amazon.com/author/serenamastin

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Social Media

IG: https://www.instagram.com/heartfeltstories2023/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/pulse_marketing/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PulseMarketingTeam

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serenamastin/ 



Wonder Woman in Business, Alice Draper

Alice Draper

Alice is a writer and PR strategist from South Africa. She's written for HuffPost, Refinery29, VICE, and more. When she isn't running her publicity business or writing personal narratives, you can find her sharing freelance advice on social media.

You can find much of her work in Business Insider here.

Follow her on Instagram at @alicedraper.


Alice Draper



Wonder Woman in Business, Jan Anne Dubin

Jan Anne Dubin

A legal industry pioneer, Jan Anne Dubin is CEO and Founder of Jan Anne Dubin Consulting.  Jan is an award-winning consultant with over 35 years of experience leading, innovating, and serving as a change agent and connector. 

Celebrating more than 10 years of delivering value and results to more, JADC assists organizations and individuals to better serve client needs by focusing on developing long-term relationships, strategic communications, revenue generation and by building brand, profile, and visibility.  Jan serves as an executive coach, providing strategic guidance and counsel to organizations and individuals by assisting them to achieve breakthroughs.  Jan has coached hundreds of lawyers, law students, and marketing professionals, including corporate law department and law firm leadership as well as high-potential individuals.  Jan is a career-long champion of diversity and inclusion and is passionate about her work in this area.

She serves as a strategic business partner to the Association of Corporate Counsel and has worked with ACC to create an executive coaching program and career development workshops.  She is a partner to Seyfarth Shaw’s The Belonging Project having created a three-part series for them on Empowered Resilience: Tools for Thriving in 2021.  She is also an advisor and business partner to the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute and provided instrumental assistance to create and deliver its forum on Women’s Transformative Leadership: Empowerment by Improving Participation and Representation.

Jan served as the Chief Growth Officer of LifeXT, LLC (lifecrosstraining.com), where she was responsible for new client engagements by educating organizations on LifeXT’s wellbeing tools and resources.   Prior to starting JADC, she served as the first North American Business Development Director for Baker & McKenzie LLP and as the Director of Client Relations for DLA Piper US LLP and its legacy firms, where she held various senior management and leadership roles for more than 17 years.

Selected by StreetWise, Inc., as one of 20 recipients of its 2019 Inspiring Chicagoan award, Jan was also selected by Chicago Business Journal as one of its 2018 Women of Influence.  Jan was inducted in 2017 as a Fellow into the College of Law Practice Management (COLPM) and in 2016 into the Legal Marketing Association Midwest Chapter’s Hall of Fame.  She has been recognized by Today’s Chicago Woman magazine as one of 100 Women Making a Difference and has received the Anti-Defamation League’s Distinguished Community Leadership Award.

In 1994 Jan was recruited by former First Lady Michelle Obama (then executive director of Public Allies Chicago) to join its board of directors; Jan later became its board chair and today serves on the emeritus board.  In 2020, Jan was recruited to serve on the i.c. Stars Chicago board and has been active in the Anti-Defamation League’s Women of Achievement annual dinner committee, having previously chaired the fundraising event for 27 years.

A 1994 M.B.A. graduate of The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, she holds a B.S. degree from the University of Kansas, William Allen White School of Journalism.  Jan lives in Chicago with her fiancé David Abrams and Shetland sheep dog Quinn.

Jan Anne Dubin


Connect with Jan Anne

Jan Anne Dubin, MBA

CEO and Founder

312.399.3116

jan@janannedubinconsulting.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/janannedubin

Twitter: @JanAnneDubin



Wonder Woman in Business, Cynthia McCollough

Cynthia McCollough

Cyndy McCollough is the founder of McCollough Consulting, a digital marketing agency specifically focused on professional services organizations. On a project basis, Cyndy manages rebrands, leads website redesigns, produces corporate video, and offers soup-to-nuts martech strategy and implementation.

Cyndy's understanding of the importance of customer journeys and user experience was forged early in her career in enterprise software sales, and she spent the next 20 years applying these best practices in-house for law firms. Now she is a leading voice in the legal marketing industry, a prolific marketing technology blogger, and a member of University of Richmond’s Customer Experience (CX) Advisory Board.

Cyndy lives with her husband, pup, and cats in Great Falls, VA.


Cynthia McCollough


A Couple of Cyndy’s Favorite Books

Bird by Bird

From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author: An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come.

For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anne’s father—also a writer—in the iconic passage that gives the book its title:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”


How We Fight for Our Lives

From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives—winner of the Kirkus Prize and the Stonewall Book Award—is a “moving, bracingly honest memoir” (The New York Times Book Review) written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

One of the best books of the year as selected by The New York Times; The Washington Post; NPR; Time; The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; Harper’s Bazaar; Elle; BuzzFeed; Goodreads; and many more.

“People don’t just happen,” writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The ‘I’ it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, ‘I am no longer yours.’”

Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

An award-winning poet, Jones has developed a style that’s as beautiful as it is powerful—a voice that’s by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one-of-a-kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.


Connect with Cyndy

Blog: mccollough.consulting/digitalmarketingblog/

 Mobile: 202.569.1675

Email: cyndy@mccollough.consulting



Wonder Woman in Business, Bianca N. Cotton

Bianca N. Cotton

Bianca N. Cotton is a thoughtful, strategic, entrepreneurial leader with extensive nonprofit program management, curriculum development, and training facilitation experience.

Bianca is driven to develop leaders who are managerially and emotionally competent in their professional practices. Passionate about intentionally creating positive social change in underrepresented populations and communities of need, while demonstrating sensitivity and compassion for all stakeholders.

Bianca is the founder and podcast host of “Behind the Confident Smile” about a lifestyle and personal development company inspiring women and girls to walk in love, live in hope and be healed from past hurts utilizing the vehicles of workshops, seminars, and educational materials to propel women and girls into purpose.

Bianca has served as a nonprofit professional for over 10 years. Earning both her Master’s Degree in Consulting in the Nonprofit and Corporate Sectors and Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, her passion is for helping women who suffer silently and smile brightly. It is demonstrated through her passionate writings and speaking. She is a five-time author, wife, and mom, and resides in Chicago, IL.



Bianca Cotton

Connect with Bianca

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/biancacotton/

Website:

behindtheconfidentsmile.com



Wonder Woman in Business, Kaaren Whitney-Vernon

Kaaren Whitney-Vernon

Kaaren Whitney-Vernon is a serial entrepreneur who is interested in solving communication problems. Whether its communication between brands and consumers or employers and job seekers, she believes there is a better way to connect. She has just launched a new venture to help women in tech find inclusive companies to support their growth.

 Before joining Shaftesbury as the head of the XR Department, Kaaren founded two successful companies. The first, Youth Culture Inc., a media agency specializing in helping brands to target millennials’ and working with brands like P&G, L’Oreal and Coca Cola. The second, shift2, created original short-form content for brands such as Walmart, U by Kotex®, Nokia and RBC. Today, at Shaftesbury, Kaaren charges her team to produce original content for television, film, and digital brands designed to drive revenue.


Kaaren has been quoted in BNN, Adweek, The Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail and on CBC. She founded the North American chapter of the globally organized Branded Content Marketing Association where she was part of the conversation to bring a universally accepted measurement for branded content.


Kaaren also sits on several North American marketing advisory boards and judging panels such as Adweek’s Arc Awards and at Brand Storytelling held each year at the Sundance Film Festival. As an Executive Producer of the scripted digital series Carmilla, 100+ million views, Kaaren has been invited to speak at leading television and content markets.


Kaaren is an Official Member of the Forbes Agency Council.

Specialties: Women in Tech, Equality and Inclusion, VR, AR, Keynote Speaker, Scripted Branded Storytelling, Scripted Digital Series, Short-form content, Millennials, GenZ, Genzennials, Content Production, YouTube, Youth, Digital Series, Leadership, Publishing, Marketing, Sales, Biz Dev

Kaaren Whitney-Vernon

Connect with Kaaren

Kaaren’s LINKEDIN Profile

Websites

Twitter