The Early Days
I started my professional career in a management training program with Cintas Corporation where I earned some wild stories – ever cleaned truck stop restrooms? I have! And now my poor husband is responsible for restroom cleaning duty at our home for life. After completing management training, I started working at a chamber of commerce where I held roles in event management and economic development. As an economic developer, I helped to recruit technology, digital entertainment and film companies to our county. 

Launching into Marketing & Running an Agency
A few years went by then low and behold, I got recruited by a film studio that I’d recruited as an economic developer. This move launched my official career as a marketer. I honed my skills in a wonderfully creative and supportive environment at the studio then struck out on my own and founded Creative Flame Media, a marketing agency. For six years, me and the CFM team worked with B2B clients across the US including brands such as Dell, RSA, VMware, Georgia Power and Google.

Answering the Need for Diversity
Over the course of building numerous marketing campaigns for clients of different sizes and in different industries, I noticed that there was a major problem in the stock photography industry – a lack of images with diverse people. So, one day, I popped in on my husband, Gerald, cleaning the restroom. I begged him to start a stock photography company with me so we could be a part of the solution. And he said yes! We launched Diversity Photos in 2016 with a focus on fostering diverse representation both in front of and behind the camera. Gerald is now the lead at Diversity Photos and I serve as Creative Director i.e. the fun gig where I get to create photoshoot concepts and work with amazing models and photographers to bring beautiful and authentic ideas and stories to life.

Back to Brand
In 2020, I got hired by one of my clients and joined a brand new marketing team for Georgia Power’s energy efficiency initiatives. In this role I oversaw multi-million dollar program budgets and campaigns in order to help our customers learn about programs and tools that can help them save energy and money. In October 2021, I became the Marketing Manager for the Community & Economic Development group. I led a team of talented creatives and marketers tasked with telling companies the “Why Georgia” story. Day in and day out, our team focused on helping to bring jobs and capital investment to Georgia, the state we call home. Then in January 2023, I took on a Brand Strategy leadership role in our Corporate Communications department where I now work with yet another talented team to develop our mass advertising campaigns, messaging hierarchies, brand reputation management and so much more. I’ve truly been blessed and have genuinely enjoyed each and every role.

Off the Clock
Professional me aside, I’m married to an obviously wonderful and supportive spouse, Gerald Carter, and together we went and had 2 amazing and fun boys. I love to travel. And just slightly more than traveling, I love reading. A DE&I advocate, I’m passionate about combating racism, biases, and misrepresentation of marginalized groups. My latest obsession is learning about bias in AI – call me if you ever want to nerd out about that particular topic.