ABOUT MARIA

Hello, I’m Maria Ross — your curator, hostess and marketing muse.

From dominating the kindergarten classroom to delighting theatre patrons to   directing brand strategies, I’ve been entertaining & educating audiences from the moment I could walk. And talk. And write.

Prior to creating Red Slice, I crafted branding and marketing strategies for Silicon Valley start-ups, global software firms, Internet companies, entertainment powerhouses and consumer businesses — including Business Objects (an SAP company), Discovery Networks and Monster.com — and created communication and training strategies for Fortune 1000 clients at Accenture.

These days, I ferret out the features that make your company completely irresistible…and then translate those qualities into strategies that stick, during one-day SLICE Strategic Retreats for solopreneurs & emerging businesses — in Seattle, and around the nation.

Meet Maria

Brand amplification is my vocation of choice, but I’m also a theatre and film actress, wine columnist and author. My book, Branding Basics for Small Business (Norlights Press, 2010) has just been updated with more power-packed case studies. And my newest book, Rebooting My Brain, tells the story of my brain aneurysm and near-miraculous recovery — with tongue-in-cheek humor & levity (yes, really).

Ready for a torrent of credentials? Brace yourself — here they come: I’m a frequent guest writer for Microsoft Small Business UK, Sharp Skirts, Entrepreneur.com, AMEX Open Forum, CRAVE and I’ve been featured on MSNBC, NPR and in Entrepreneur, Seattle Business, and Columbus CEO. I’ve offered practical and punchy insight on talk radio shows and delighted live audiences at the Puget Sound Business Journal, Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Administration, Ladies Who Launch, CRAVE, Women Business Owners and Savor the Success. I earned a B.S in Marketing and a minor in Spanish from Indiana University. And among other philanthropic efforts, I’m a brain injury awareness advocate and I let my dog-fanatic freak-flag fly, with pro bono branding support to the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation.