UnLeadership

6Heroic Leadership

LAUREN MAILLIAN IS AN AWARD-WINNING marketer, prolific investor, advisor, entrepreneur, author, and board member. She has advised and invested in over 40 start-ups, and her portfolio represents over $5 billion in market capitalization. She continued the legacy of the groundbreaking ProjectDiane research, which has generated billions of media impressions globally for being the first-ever data report on the state of Latina and Black women entrepreneurs in the United States. The former board chair of digitalundivided, Lauren took the helm as CEO to evolve and grow the organization to further support women of color entrepreneurs, especially in the wake of the racial reckoning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Lauren's career has been shaped by her ability to find opportunities, whether new lines of revenue, ways to squeeze more out of existing profit margins, or ways to enhance a product or deliver more value. That's just how her mind works. It's best summarized as seeing gaps and having the ability to identify and seize hidden profitable value.

When Alison sat down with Lauren to speak about leadership, she had just begun her new role as president of Digital Innovation for Hero Media Inc., where she now leads all lines of business for the company. Hero Media is a Black-owned media and advertising agency that has been around for about four years. The founder and chairman, Joe Anthony, had been a colleague of Lauren's, and she watched him lead some of the greatest campaigns ...