Genia is a marketing strategist at Belwah Media. She’s also a strategic planning consultant at Belwah Strategy and founder and Interim Executive Director of Rock County Jumpstart. Genia’s a design thinking practitioner who helps organizations develop innovative strategies that focus on success through collaborative problem-solving. Genia and her team are skilled at working with mission-driven organizations in complex situations that desire a creative and thoughtful process for creating change.
For almost 20 years, Genia has supported clients with marketing strategy development, strategic planning, business plan development, and community engagement. Genia has extensive experience with nonprofit strategic planning and designing digital marketing and social media strategies with a focus on community outreach, community engagement and fundraising. Her marketing agency Belwah Media has been awarded the LGBT Business of the Year Award and is also part of the Forbes Agency Council, an invite-only organization for successful and diverse executives in marketing, PR, media, and advertising. Genia is among the Top 100 Black Women to Watch in Marketing, and she’s listed in Who’s Who in Social Media. Genia is a Forbes columnist and you’ll also find her writing on Business.com and Social Media Today.
Genia has provided corporate training and marketing strategy development for clients like Jockey, LPGA, Chicago-Rockford Airport, Nielsen, Equifax, and Whole Foods. Genia wrote the social media training manual for TGI Fridays’ 300+ international restaurants and she’s been cited in publications written by the Federal Communications Commission on matters related to the importance of mobile marketing.
Genia is also a public speaker who’s spoken for over 13 years on topics related to digital marketing trends, social media, entrepreneurship, community media, nonprofit management, Black women in business, and LGBT issues.
Currently, Genia is serving as Board Chair of Collaboration for Good and she’s a member of the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools Board of Directors. She volunteers 10 hours each month coaching and mentoring nonprofits and social enterprises on marketing, volunteer recruitment and retention, and improving their fundraising strategies. She’s currently the Entrepreneur in Residence at Madison College’s Goodman South Campus.
Genia received her Bachelor’s degree from Beloit College (Beloit, WI) and her MBA from Cardinal Stritch University (Milwaukee, WI).