Fresh Start Women’s Foundation Names Patti O’Brien as Chief Marketing Officer

O’Brien will lead Fresh Start’s marketing, advertising and public outreach strategies

In its 30th anniversary year, Fresh Start Women’s Foundation welcomed Patti O’Brien as chief marketing officer. O’Brien will lead Fresh Start’s brand revitalization and marketing, including outreach and recruitment for the organization’s Impact Program. Launched in September 2021, the Impact Program aligns the organization’s expertise from three decades of providing support services to women with a science-based and proven model for empowering women on their paths to economic self-sufficiency.

O’Brien’s role will include developing and leading marketing and engagement strategies to attract women who can most benefit from Fresh Start’s Impact Program, particularly its education, job training and career placement programs. She will also support the organization’s business-to-business marketing initiatives and development and fundraising strategies.

O’Brien comes to Fresh Start from Maricopa Corporate College (MCOR) at Maricopa Community Colleges. She started at MCOR in 2014 as its director of marketing and communication to launch and build its marketing division. A few years later, she assumed additional areas of responsibility, including sales, learning solutions and operations. Then, from 2018-2022, O’Brien served as MCOR’s chief operating officer and head of corporate engagement.

During her time at MCOR, O’Brien and her team achieved significant growth by leveraging innovative and effective marketing, recruiting and learning solutions that supported student success and the fulfillment of employer partners’ needs for talent recruitment, training, upskilling and retention.

“What Patti successfully accomplished at MCOR is directly relevant to Fresh Start’s strategy to attract women who can most benefit from our Impact Program, including education and job training programs that put them on the path to self-sufficient earnings and careers. I could not be more excited to have Patti on our team to enable and accelerate our ability to scale our reach and positively impact more women’s lives,” said president and CEO of Fresh Start, Kim McWaters. “We can’t wait to see Patti put her expertise, experience and ability to empower diverse, high-performing teams to use for such a meaningful cause.”

“As a single mom with a passion for providing life-changing opportunities, joining the team at Fresh Start is an honor and such a great fit for me,” O’Brien said. “I am looking forward to leading Fresh Start’s marketing, advertising and outreach strategies and advancing a community where every woman has the ability to reach her full potential.”

For more behind this Frontdoor, visit freshstartwomen.org 

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