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