👋 Ya'll!
I’m a creative brand marketer with 10+ years of experience leading successful cross-functional teams through integrated campaigns, product and retail launches, and partnerships.
I'm currently the Interim Director of Brand Marketing and Partnerships at ByHeart, an infant nutrition company. I’ve also recently served as the Interim Head of Marketing for Laoban, a D.C.-based dumpling shop selling chef-crafted dumplings nationwide. There, I established their marketing strategy and launched the product into several top retailers.
Before consulting, I led marketing at Omsom, an Asian food brand founded by first-generation Vietnamese-American sisters, Vanessa and Kim Pham. Under my leadership, we successfully launched the DTC brand into retail and the new Saucy Noodles line, culminating in a successful company acquisition by DayDayCook in June 2024.
Before Omsom, I served as the second marketing hire and brand leader at Bowery Farming, an innovative indoor vertical farming company. Prior to startups, I worked in media at Condé Nast developing beauty + CPG advertiser programs at Bon Appétit, Epicurious, Lucky, and Vogue.
In my spare time, you'll find me hiking or cooking with my son & husband in the Hudson Valley.
I'm currently open to both consulting and full-time opportunities!
📧 annamariabolka@gmail.com or connect on LinkedIn
What it's like to work with me:
What's out: "Pioneering Brand Executives"
What's in: "Cool Brand Show Moms"
I'm not a "pioneering" marketer or "bespoke" brand-building lunatic like Emily in Paris.
I'll be honest, when marketers use words like results-driven, pioneering executive, brand-builder, or empathic leader in their LinkedIn bios, I want to throw up everywhere. Of course, all marketers should aspire to be creative, analytical, kind humans. Leave the ego at the door for a moment: our jobs are nothing without a great product or company to market.
If it were up to me, I'd describe our breed as "Brand Show Moms" or even "Company Yearbook Editors." We are mini-agents for our brand babies, packing their schedules with campaigns and moments that strategically tell their story with impact. There's the sexy stuff we get to do (like brand stunts! events! working with great creatives!), but there's also the boring and really important stuff (like budget management, marketing operations, CX).
I think the most important quality any of us can bring to our jobs is an ability to know how to tell a great story. Here are some individuals and brands that have inspired the storyteller in me:
- My Italian Grandmother, who taught me the power of hyperbole and hand gestures to get a point across.
- Southwest Airlines, for embracing me with good old campy Southern hospitality every time I fly to my hometown of Dallas from LGA. Your flight attendants could challenge many rappers in a freestyle battle.
- Keith Morrison, whose impressionable voice and investigative journalism enraptured a child that was a little too into murder mysteries.
- Nike, for inspiring me to see an athlete in myself, despite terrible hand-eye coordination.
- The Dallas Cowboys, for somehow managing to keep their place as "America's Team" despite not winning a Super Bowl since I was four-years-old.