Zena Martin, Biography
In 1998, Zena Martin left her management level advertising job in New York, put all of her possessions in storage and moved to London by herself with one suitcase, no job, no work permit and only knowing a handful of Londoners. Fast forward over ten years later, after having worked her way up the British corporate ladder, and Zena is now the Founder and Managing Director of Acknowledge Communications Ltd, a Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility Communications Consultancy - and is now also a dual-citizen.
Prior to launching Acknowledge, Zena was part of media group, WPP, in the UK, for three years, as a Hill & Knowlton (H&K) UK board director and the MD of two of its subsidiaries: Blanc & Otus London, a B2B and B2C technology agency; and piranhaKid, a youth and consumer agency. Before that, she held senior positions at Text 100 and Firefly Communications in London and Paris.
Zena started her career in the United States, where she spent several years working in the advertising industry on fmcg/consumer/retail brands, as well as an in-house, marketing communications manager at BellSouth (now AT&T), launching its dial-up and broadband services.
Zena was listed in PRWeek magazine's 2008 Power Book, “the definitive guide to the most influential people in PR,” and was a Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Excellence Awards judge for three years, for the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) category. Zena is an active member of charity, The Junior League of London (was previously on the Board of Trustees), and is a Non-Exec Director for the Group Diversity Board, as well as, the Assurance & Regulation Board of Places for People; a Trustee Board member of The Scout Association and a Trustee Board member of The RSA (Royal Society for the Arts), a member of People to People International; a member of Ignite, a group working to improve diversity within the UK PR industry and is a frequent public speaker, media pundit and interviewee on the subject of Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility.