Kara Willis is a marketing, events, and community engagement professional with a career focused on bringing people, ideas, and experiences together. She currently serves as Program Manager for RedHawk50 at Miami University’s John W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship, where she works with alumni entrepreneurs and the broader Miami University entrepreneurship community. Kara also serves as Marketing Director at The Mercantile Library in Cincinnati, leading marketing, membership engagement, programming, and communications for one of the country’s oldest member-supported libraries. Throughout her career, she has worked across marketing, events, entrepreneurship, community building, and brand strategy, with a particular passion for creating memorable experiences and developing programs that help people connect. Her work is driven by a belief that great marketing is about more than promotion. It is about building communities, telling meaningful stories, and creating opportunities for people to engage with organizations in authentic and unexpected ways.
Through this conversation, attendees will gain insight into what to expect during a consulting engagement, how students tackle complex business challenges, and the measurable outcomes these collaborations can produce. Participants will leave with a better understanding of how to leverage university talent and community resources to support growth, innovation, and problem-solving within their own organizations.
Join us as we kick off the sweetest day of the week! Chase Dawson and Alex Yocum of Swirley's Soft Serve will dive deep into a discussion about entrepreneurship, the ecosystem that has supported them, and the importance of University led resources.
