Board of Directors

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Cristina Vera
Founder & CEO at Vera Creative, Inc.

Cristina Vera Bridges is an award-winning communications strategist with 25 years of expertise in leadership, marketing, and community engagement. Her efforts have resulted in more resources, representation, and funding for underserved communities across Chicago and throughout Illinois.

Her agency takes a purpose-centered approach to their work, partnering with countless government organizations, blue-chip brands, and social impact organizations to advocate for equity in education, the arts, and community health and wellness.

This year Cristina officially founded a non-profit La Collective, a community of Latina leaders. Cristina’s non-profit connects seasoned, successful women ready to create a legacy with young professionals looking to level up. Her non-profit offers unique mentorship opportunities for Latinas to connect women with shared experiences to support the growth of and elevate Latinas in professional leadership positions.

Additional notable work includes increasing awareness for Goya in the Midwest and partnering with non-profits to give back to the community. She also created a campaign for the 2020 Census to reach underserved communities in Cook County. Cristina has led the effort to increase Latino enrollment by ten percent for the Chicago Head Start campaign, fully enrolling 25,000 children for the bi-lingual Chicago Park District summer day camp and reaching nearly 6,000 Illinois businesses with a contactless canvassing campaign to increase awareness and compliance with CDC guidelines among the communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

Cristina also co-produced GRLZ WKND, an all-female lineup showcase with local names in music, and produced the V-Word Chicago’s first-ever purpose-centered immersive pop-up.

Over the past two decades, Cristina’s experience directing communications efforts in Chicago to serve Latino, Black, and hard-to-reach communities is reinforced by her Golden Trumpet Award and Chicago Advertising Federation People’s Choice award.

For the latest on Cristina Vera, visit her creative marketing agency's website at VeraCreative.com