Helping to define and navigate the digital space as a creative force for brands and influencers, while becoming a recognized and sought-after business innovator and global digital architect — and balancing that with motherhood…
Kendra Bracken-Ferguson, Entrepreneur, Innovator, Transformative Brand Builder, Founder/CEO at BrainTrust, and former Chief Digital Officer at CAA-GBG, shares her story with George Manley (CEO & Co-Founder SOULER) in the MouthMedia Network studios. Presented by SOULER.
In this story:
- How Kendra knew she wanted to be in PR from the time she saw the Press Secretary in the 6th grade.
- Purdue and her internship at FleishmanHillard PR
- Receiving her Master’s in Sports Management and working with the Indiana Pacers
- Leaving the Pacers Organization after the “Malice at the Palace” to join FleishmanHillard PR full time
- Taking Cingular (AT&T) into the social sphere with MySpace
- Creating a Mobile Music Studio with MySpace and Cingular
- The birth of Digital PR, before it became Social Media and Digital Marketing
- How PR Practitioners are always the best storytellers
- Being a leader in the evolution of social media marketing
- Leading the Digital and Social teams at FleishmanHillard
- Landing at Ralph Lauren after realizing her desire to get into fashion and beauty
- Going from being an “Agency Girl” to the Brand Side of the business
- Realizing the need to shift advertising budgets into social
- Looking at social thru the lens of E-commerce
- Can you get an influencer to bring someone to your website, have them stay long enough to make a purchase, and sign up for an emailer?
- Starting a business to manage bloggers, DBA
- Ralph Lauren’s invention of “Merchantainment”
- Creating a symbiotic relationship between brand and blogger
- Picking the right influencer based on the ethos of your brand
- Starting a business without a business plan
- The first time asking “Am I an entrepreneur?”
- Launching a new product for bloggers
- Having blogger parties with Kenneth Cole
- Leaving DBA to work with brands again.
- Realizing your flaws and finding your strengths
- Building brands, connecting people, seeing the future, and being innovative
- Surrounding yourself with people smarter than you
- The busy life of PR
- What is it that drives people to be serial entrepreneurs.
- Wanting to write a book about being an Intrepreneur vs Entrepreneur
- Can you hire a COO, to handle things from management on down, and still be a great leader?
- The humanity of CEOs, from meltdowns to successes.
- What is it that makes Elon Musk and Steve Jobs so unique?
- How being an entrepreneur to psychologically damaging, the most positive way.
- Can anyone be a brand builder, install the infrastructure needed to grow and support a new brand?
- Having night sweats about being under capitalized.
- Starting a company young with no “risk” versus starting a company with a family
- Having a sense of destiny, Preparedness plus opportunity equals success
- Balancing work life with family life
- Kendra on being the best role model she can for her daughter and encouraging an entrepreneurial mind
- How becoming a mom was a bit of a wake up for her health, both physical and mental
- The best advice for being a successful mother and entrepreneur
- Creating generational wealth for her family, it should be easier for the next generation.
- Influencers are the new driver’s of commerce and pop culture trends
- Her latest company, Talent Venture Fund
- Bridging brands and influencers.
- Increasing the valuation of brands to make them more commercially successful, and to help boost their relevance based on the partnership ownership with the talent
