Team

Bobbie Carlton, founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights and Innovation Women, has been called Boston’s Innovation Den Mother, and the Startup Fairy Godmother.  She’s an award-winning marketing, PR and social media professional with a soft spot for the under-served and under-represented in the high-tech community. She speaks regularly on PR, social media, community building, product launches, public speaking and women’s issues.

Previously, in addition to working with a number of Boston-area PR and marketing firms, she headed global PR at Cognos and PTC, both publicly-held enterprise software companies. In 2006 she switched gears, joining a startup focused on supporting self-esteem and positive role models for preteen girls through a social network and book series.

In 2008, she started her own company…the first one.

• Carlton PR & Marketing is a boutique agency servicing a wide variety of startups and small companies, providing support for PR, content creation, social media marketing and marketing programs.

• Mass Innovation Nights (MIN) is a social media powered new product showcase and networking event.  MIN has launched more than 1000 new products which have received more than $2 billion in funding.

• Innovation Women is an online “visibility bureau” helping drive visibility for entrepreneurial, technical and innovative women through speaking engagements.

In 2010 she was named one of the “Ten Bostonians who have done the most for the startup community”, and in 2011 she was a recipient of a Mass High Tech All-star award. In 2015 she was named a Boston Business Journal Woman to Watch. PR News called her a Gamechanger in 2017.

Bobbie featured in articles/interviews

https://www.necn.com/news/business/NECN_052216_TWIBA_12PM_NECN-380415281.html?fbclid=IwAR1LVD3zrXFigMUbcrAj56yIMgpSkGOq-o2LPGV8jN_qsc0nzoH5IpMyxQw

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-getting-social-can-help-build-your-business/

Follow Bobbie on Twitter as @BobbieC @MassInno @WomenInno or @CarltonPRM

Lisa Saurs – Lisa would say her support of women started with Girl Scouts. Following her desire to build communities that empower, she went on to major in Women’s Studies at UCSB for her BA, before landing in the marketing field. Since 2015, she has planned and organized hundreds of events around career development, job skills, professional development, and community building via her role as a Core Organizer with Day of Shecurity for 5 years, her role with Secure Diversity for 7 years, her volunteer roles with WiCyS, and Raíces Cyber Org, and her advocacy for inclusion. In her downtime, Lisa enjoys gardening, attending live music shows, and reading romantasy books. She lives in Illinois with her husband and their four cats Tangerine, Is Potato, Ashryver, and Hank McCoy “Beast”.

Emily Bradley, Customer Success Associate, is responsible for customer success at Innovation Women, whether it is helping event managers find the perfect speaker, or helping speakers find the perfect speaking opportunities to showcase their talents and expertise. Before joining Innovation Women, Emily worked as a literary publicist, a background that makes her particularly popular with Innovation Women’s author/speakers. Emily graduated from Auburn University with a Bachelor’s degree in public relations.

Emily Bradley, Customer Success Associate, is responsible for customer success at Innovation Women, whether it is helping event managers find the perfect speaker, or helping speakers find the perfect speaking opportunities to showcase their talents and expertise. Before joining Innovation Women, Emily worked as a literary publicist, a background that makes her particularly popular with Innovation Women’s author/speakers. Emily graduated from Auburn University with a Bachelor’s degree in public relations.

Kerry Fristoe – Social Media, Content creation. Kerry worked in Member Services at the AGC of Massachusetts, helping members of the busy construction trade association and planning events and classes.  She promoted AGC programs and helped clients gain national certifications and awards. She also raised a bright, shining daughter. Before Kerry started her family, she was a Systems Engineer at Lockheed-Martin and served six years in the United States Air Force as a Cryptologist/Linguist.  She’d tell you what she did, but they’d revoke her 00 status. Along the way, she attended Connecticut College, The Community College of the Air Force, Harvard Extension School, and the Defense Language Institute. Kerry watches a lot of movies and writes about them on her own blog, Prowler Needs a Jump, as well as the Brattle Film Notes, and B Movie Maniacs.  She also writes guest pieces for other film blogs. She runs, with her partners, a weekly Tweet-along where a group watches films that often involve radiation and a large spider.

Nat Hefferman – Social Media and Newsletters. A former financial services professional, Nat began working in social media as a website monitor for a COPPA-compliant children’s website (yes, the Beacon Street Girls) while home raising his two kids. The job soon evolved into the role of head monitor, managing the schedules and team of monitors. In his spare time, he plays saxophone, bassoon and sarrusophone (look it up) with several local orchestras and bands, most notably the Extraordinary Rendition Band of Providence, RI. Follow Nat on Twitter as @Dublreed

Kumari Swamy – Operations. Kumari Swamy directs operations for Innovation Women. She plans, monitors and executes revenue mechanisms towards building scale. As necessary she works with sales, marketing, production and technologists to achieve growth goals. Previously, she worked for The Marg Foundation, publisher of books and magazines in Indian and related art and culture as Manager – Data Processing. She managed authors, compiled material (text and images) from authors/contributors to meet publication timelines of their quarterly books and magazines. She also set up and managed the technology for recording accounting transactions at The Marg. She holds an MBA from ICFAI, Hyderabad and Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Mumbai University.

Pradeep Aradhya brings a unique perspective on building businesses. With the strategic approach of building a “minimum viable business” he guides Novus Laurus as well as mentors and invests in other businesses.

Pradeep takes his experience in organic and inorganic growth strategies along with product and operational know how in multiple spaces and combines it with 12 years in digital marketing and the use of cutting edge technologies to drive businesses to “new successes”. Previously, as a senior executive he successfully led acquisitions in the mobile space where his role was to identify strategic growth areas,  inorganic growth potential, candidate product companies and negotiate acquisitions. He has also led multi million dollar initiatives at Fortune 500 companies to create technology platforms for marketing. He identified and advocated the best and newest developments in various technology areas that gave brands competitive advantages in establishing lasting relationships with customers.

At Novus Laurus he builds empowered and engaged teams both internally and within client businesses. Pradeep holds a Ph.D. in Structural Dynamics from NC State University and a M.Sc in Aerospace Engg. from the Indian Institute of Science.