Colleen Birdnow Brown

Founder, Marca Global, LLC

Denver

Colleen Birdnow Brown began her career in finance and digital technology and has achieved recognition as an entrepreneur and corporate leader with over thirty years of experience in the media industry.

She is the former President, CEO of Fisher Communications Inc. (FSCI), former President of Broadcast at Lee Enterprises (LEE), and served in the C-Suite of Belo Corporation (BCI) and Gannett (GCI).

Brown is the founder and owner of award-winning online reputation management firm Marca Global LLC, an Inc. 5000 fastest growing company, which owns Internet Reputation, Massive Peak and Clickadilly Monitoring. She is on the board of directors of True Blue (TBI), where she chairs the Innovation and Technology Committee, Port Blakely Companies, and Delta Dental of Washington. She also served as chairman of the board of American Apparel during its reorganization.

She has been on the board of directors for numerous start up companies including: Careerbuilder.com, Cars.com, and Datasphere Technologies. Brown has received numerous awards in technology, leadership and innovation, including the Technology Leadership Award for the founding of the Mobile 500 Alliance and the Innovation Award for her work in Mobile Digital Television. She was recognized as the Outstanding Public Company CEO from the Business Journal in 2014. In addition, she was selected as manager of the year in 2014 by Gabelli Asset Management and was the first woman inducted into their Management Hall of Fame for delivering the greatest shareholder value during her time as CEO.

Colleen is a frequent keynote speaker on media, technology and leadership issues and founder of the Mobile 500 Alliance. She is past chair of United Way of King County and former Director of Associated Press (AP), the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), National Association of Television and Programming Executives (NATPE), and is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Colleen is committed to board diversity. Her focus is on addition and inclusion of women on corporate boards and empowering women in leadership roles. She is a long-time volunteer, active member and leader of the International Women’s Forum, National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), Women Corporate Directors and the Committee of 200.