Tenagne Girma-Jeffries
Tenagne Girma-Jeffries has had an extensive career in marketing and building global brands. Tenagne has had tenure at top global advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather, Grey Worldwide, The Kaplan Thaler Group and The Sawtooth Group. Her clients have included Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola Company, Wyeth and McCormick. Tenagne started her career in marketing at Ogilvy and Mather where she worked on Coca-Cola brands. Specifically, she managed the global re- branding of Fanta and Sprite, as well as the launch of Sprite Remix and Sprite Zero. At Ogilvy she won The David Ogilvy Award for effective advertising. Embracing her belief that insight into your target audience is fundamental to developing a competitive edge, she initiated the Entertainment Committee and created Influencer Panel discussions. She later landed a job working at Grey Worldwide on Procter and Gamble where she launched Root Touch Up, which won the Allure and Good Housekeeping Magazine Beauty Award. Following Grey Worldwide she headed to The Kaplan Thaler Group to work on Swiffer, Herbal Essences Global and Aussie. On Swiffer, she was tasked with taking the brand from 500 million to a billion dollar brand. She was nominated by her client for an Ad Color award for her work on Procter and Gamble. Previously, she worked at The Sawtooth Group where she headed-up the Lawry’s, Freixenet, Beech-nut and McCormick Hispanic accounts. Most recently, she launched a new venture called The Cultivation Group, which has allowed her to merge her love for community planning and development with her expertise in marketing. The mission is to transform the urban landscape of Newark culturally and visually one person, one block and one corner at a time. The goal of the group is to create a real movement around community-based economic development. The Cultivation Group just completed construction on their first commercial project in Newark. Tenagne is a New Jersey Performing Arts Center Women’s Association Trustee and the Vice President of the Promotions Committee, Founder of The Historic Weequahic Neighborhood Association and has worked with the Weequahic Neighborhood Association. Additionally, she was the former President of the SPARK Family Association. She lives in Newark, NJ with her husband, Shavar Jeffries, and her children, Kaleb and Naomi. She believes that we must be the change you want to see in the world.
