community-engagement
(8)
The Birmingham startup that made pharma pay for trust it never earned
Del Smith and Tiffany Whitlow built a 200,000-member community first and an AI second - and got seven of the ten biggest drug makers to buy the trust they earned.
Deanna Capel
At Busey, Deanna Capel turned a first job in communications into a career shaping how a regional bank sounds, serves and shows up. Her path runs through brand systems, merger moments and the unglamorous work of being present in Champaign.
Wendy Schenker
Wendy Schenker turned a bank’s marketing brief into a Chicago invitation - pairing sponsorships, public rituals and community work so the brand is experienced before it is advertised.
Social Strata (Crowdstack)
For more than two decades, a husband-and-wife team in Charleston has quietly powered online communities for brands that outgrew Facebook Groups - and never took a dime of venture money.
Hivebrite
The community platform built for impact - combining a flexible engagement engine, AI agents, and expert support to help organizations turn scattered members into active networks.
Zencity
Zencity is a govtech company that builds the leading platform for community trust, purpose-built for local government. It combines AI-driven social listening, statistically representative resident surveys, and communication tools to help cities, counties, and public safety agencies understand what residents think and turn that input into decisions, budgets, and policy. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in New York and Tel Aviv, Zencity works with more than 600 government agencies and has raised roughly $93M in venture funding.
Adriana Echandi
Adriana Echandi Bachtold is the Group CEO of Morpho Travel Experience, a Latin American travel retail and food & beverage powerhouse with over 2,800 employees across 11 countries. Starting as a cashier-seller at what was then Grupo Britt in 2002, she rose through every rung of the organization to become CEO - overseeing 300+ commercial spaces in 23 airports serving 78 million passengers annually. Named Businesswoman of the Year 2022 by Costa Rica's El Financiero and a Moodie Davitt People of the Year honoree, she leads a company built around 'sense of place' - connecting global travelers with authentic local culture, artisan products, and sustainable practices. A fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, she has built a company where 50% of management are women, equal pay is non-negotiable, and a kiosk in San José has become a $225 million regional retail force.
Paulo Martins
Paulo Martins is the Brazilian-born founder and CEO of Arena (arena.im), a San Francisco-based AI-powered community engagement platform that lets brands embed live chat, live blogs, and audience interaction tools directly on their own websites with a single line of code. After stints at NASA, Ubisoft, and Hulu — where he helped grow the streaming company from 100K to 7 million paying subscribers — Martins founded Arena in 2017 with a clear thesis: businesses should own their audience, not rent it from social platforms. By 2022, Arena had grown to 25,000 customers across 150 countries and closed a $13.6M Series A led by CRV, with backing from heavyweights like David Sacks, Des Traynor, and Olivier Pomel.