Kristena Lucky is the Executive Vice President, Brand Solutions Practice Lead, North America with BCW Global. In this role, she is responsible for setting the strategic vision and operationalization plan for this 100-person-plus practice group. She also serves as global client lead for Colgate-Palmolive. She joins the agency coming most recently from Edelman where she was an Executive Vice President/U.S. Brand Client Strategist. While there, Kristena also played a dual role of leading DEI for the Edelman Chicago office—driving and spearheading efforts to recruit and retain diverse talent while also enhancing the agency’s reputation in the local marketplace.
Over the course of her successful career, Kristena is lauded for delivering best-in-class brand marketing programs for many Fortune500 brands—deploying a multitude of levers to engage with stakeholders. However brand purpose is at the heart of what she loves to do. She is a firm believer that there has to be a clear and compelling value-exchange in brand marketing—that brands need to make a difference in people’s lives otherwise why should they bother engaging with the brand.
As a Vice President, Group Account Director with Burrell Communications, the nation’s oldest and leading Black marketing agency, she helped launch McDonald’s McCafe and provided strategic counsel on a number of big brands such as Eli Lilly and Toyota that were developing and executing programs targeted at the Black community. One highlight of her career is the work she did for Walt Disney World Parks and Resorts, in which she helped launch the very successful Disney’s Dreamers Academy program.
Additionally, Kristena has extensive brand management experience having achieved success as a Marketing Manager for global corporations – Accenture and Motorola. While at Motorola she was charged with developing engaging, integrated go-to-market plans to launch consumer products, driving demand for the brand and most importantly, sales of mobile products. Earlier in her career, Kristena helped drive results for marketing agency, Arc Worldwide (f/k/a Frankel.), working on clients including Frito-Lay, USPS and McDonalds.
She is a graduate of Michigan State University and now lives in Dallas with her husband, daughter, and Maltipoo. Kristena actively helps create more opportunities and seats at the table for diverse marketing and communications experts. It’s not a nice thing to do, but a must do. She wants to show her young daughter that anything and everything is possible.