Debra Kaye

DEBRA KAYE is an international innovation expert specializing in culture and brand strategy for consumer businesses. She and her teams are the innovation consultants behind some of the world's billion dollar brands. Debra encourages her clients to become change-makers, and has helped set agendas for companies such as L'Oreal, Mars Petcare, Colgate, McDonald's, American Express, Dove Chocolate, Kimberly-Clark, Johnson & Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser, Sony, and many more.

Having worked globally work for many years, Debra Kaye recently founded Lucule, a New York consultancy at the nexus of innovation and culture. It focuses on creating innovation strategies, new products and businesses that drive big growth, and turns ideas into tangible, profitable assets. Developing new paradigms to benefit clients, Lucule created Pente, a proprietary tool that harnesses social media for business, making brands more influential in the marketplace. It also ensures that marketing dollars are used more effectively.

BDDP/Mancebo Kaye, the marketing company Debra founded in Spain, became #1 in the country for strategic thinking and #3 for creativity in fewer than three years, according to Ballester research. It's the kind of success that comes from inspiring people to be great thinkers and creating a culture of solving critical business issues. Debra was also a frequently featured marketing and communications writer for top Spanish business publications, appeared prominently in five books about marketing, and named Female Entrepreneur of the Year by Spain's Tribuna Economica.

As CEO of TBWA\Italy, she was named the country's top marketer, and oversaw the business for clients such as Wind (mobile phones), Apple, Group Pernod Ricard, Bieirsdorf, and Nissan. In the U.S., she introduced her own skin care line, which was distributed nationwide in Nordstrom, Sephora, and in Saks Fifth Avenue New York. Three-months into distribution, Iconoculture named it the best-positioned cosmeceutical on the market.

Debra Kaye is a best-selling Amazon Kindle author. Her book, "Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation" debunks the myth that creative thinking and cool ideas are a mysterious gift reserved for a talented few. She proves that anyone can be inventive and create big, winning ideas and market-captivating concepts.

A columnist for Entrepreneur.com, Debra writes about creative thinking, brainpower and consumer insights. She is also a frequent commentator on American Public Media's "Marketplace" and contributor to Fast Company. Debra is a sought-after speaker and has been featured at such venues as South by Southwest, among other engagements. She is a board member of Count Me In, an organization dedicated to helping women-owned businesses grow and prosper.