An entrepreneur, female founder, marketer, brand expert, women’s leadership advocate and authenticity guru, Karen Maria Alston is an award winning proven expert. She is affectionately known as The Advertising Diva or for her hashtag #beingkarenalston. In 2002, Karen stepped out on faith, left her job at America Online to follow her passion and create Alston Marketing Group now d/b/a, AM+G Marketing Communications. (www.alstonmarketing.com).

In 2015, Karen added to her entrepreneurial endeavors and founded the innovative women’s empowerment and professional educational leadership development platform, The Spectrum Circle. (www.thespectrumcircle.com) The Spectrum Circle is growing exponentially and has held several notable events in the Washington, DC area featuring a plethora of local and nationally recognized exceptional women sharing authentic leadership stories of navigating the glass ceiling and learned experiences.

Born as a 3rd generation entrepreneur and a 4th generation college graduate Karen knew early on in her career she would eventually work for herself and become an entrepreneur as previous generations. She has been featured in several print & online publications, radio, blogs, podcasts and speaks on a range of issues on TV news including The Today Show, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News and TV One (News One Now) where she is a frequent guest contributor. Karen is a public speaker and commentator on a range of topics including authentic leadership, women’s empowerment, marketing & branding, sexual harassment, (#metoo), gender bias & inclusion, fearlessness & vulnerability, the glass ceiling, design thinking, and women entrepreneurs. Her favorite speaking topic the “burdens of the driven superwoman” was the motivating pre-cursor to founding The Spectrum Circle.

Karen Maria Alston received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance from Howard University, an Executive Education Certificate in Branding and Design from Harvard University, an Executive Education Certificate in Non-Profit Management from Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, and in 2017 an Executive Education Certificate from Harvard Business School for completion of the Women’s Leadership Forum. An exclusive program that accepts 60 female participants annually from a worldwide pool of applicants.