StartupGrind Detroit Director, Faris Alami, is hosting YLAI Fellow Maria Brasil - CEO and Foundress of Essence Branding at his Southwest Michigan-based company International Strategic Management. Maria has worked for more than a decade creating and building Brands with Soul, which add strategic efficiency while generating value for the world. 

Consultant, teacher, writer and speaker; Maria is a specialist in Branding and Brand Management, with experience at Universidad Europea de Madrid and the European Institute of Design and New York University.  She is a TEDx Speaker and lecturer with international experience, at the age of 25 she published her first book, “The Defendant's Speech”, in which she deals with topics such as Purpose, Conscious Capitalism and new business models. Maria also finds time to teach graduate classes, courses and workshops in the areas of Business - all while being the CEO and Foundress of Essence Branding, a B-Corp branding and brand strategy consultancy focused on revealing the uniqueness of each business.

Essence Branding builds powerful brand platforms, revealing the uniqueness of each business and the value it generates for the world. Based on exclusive methodologies and transformative immersion tools, they dive into each company's culture, history, team, and leadership to develop strategies and narratives, and to design authentic and accurate projects, bringing strong and memorable brands to life. They understand how to maximize the impact of organizations and align them with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Helping people and companies build robust, consistent, and memorable brands connected to the current market's demands that respect sustainability, governance, ethics, and social responsibility guidelines. With operations all over Brazil, and participation in international projects in Germany, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, and China, they've already contributed to building more than 250 brands and trained thousands of people, adding customers and partners such as Unilever, Dow Química, Bridgestone, and CASE New Holland.

We invite you to come learn from the first woman President of the National Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs and the current President of the Advisory Board.