Meet the Founder, Michele Landa Riggio.
Michele is a communications executive with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. She's honed her skills at big-house brand agencies and in-house corporate brand teams. Most recently, she led Communications and Marketing for PEN America, the iconic free expression literary arts organization. Before going out on her own, she spent 13 years at the national headquarters of Girl Scouts of the USA. While there, she had the privilege of spearheading the organization’s 100th anniversary campaign, earning Girl Scouts recognition as Youth Nonprofit Brand of the Year.
Prior to that, Michele worked in the consumer lifestyles and travel practices for notable public relations and marketing agencies, Ketchum and Weber Shandwick. Her client roster included The Islands of the Bahamas, Amtrak, Royal Caribbean, Frito-Lay, Gevalia, Medscape.com, Visa and Philips Lighting, just to name a few.
Aside from eating lots of Girl Scout cookies, over the course of her career Michele has created and managed teams, overseen million-dollar projects and the intricacies of many client and agency relationships. She is thankful for the opportunities she has been given to launch new product lines, spearhead a centennial celebration, create several cause marketing campaigns, counsel and train numerous CEOs and boards and work with A-list talent.
Michele is passionate about whatever she sets her mind to. She loves to generate original ideas, build on existing ones and establish a roadmap for getting results. What she finds most rewarding is collaborating with others to help them realize the full potential of their vision. She is the Founder INSPIREflies, a community that spotlights and helps to advance female entrepreneurship.
Michele is a graduate of the State University of New York-Binghamton, and has completed art and culinary course work in Aix-en-Provence, France, and London, England. She loves food, fashion, interior decorating, spends lots of time on the ski slopes and at the beach, enjoys traveling and practicing her Spanish when she can. Michele resides in Manhattan, New York, with her family.