Amanda Brinkman
Amanda is a producer, film-maker, branding expert and sought-after speaker, sharing her “Do Well By Doing Good” philosophy on stages around the country.
Amanda is a producer, film-maker and branding expert, sharing her “Do Well By Doing Good” philosophy on stages around the country. She demonstrates how both companies and individuals can make a meaningful and positive difference in people’s lives, while fostering their own success in the process. She believes that companies must not only identify their brand purpose, but put that purpose into action.
Through her work, Amanda has defined what it looks like for brands to truly act “as publishers” creating movements through their content strategy. In her most recent demonstration of this, Amanda was the Chief Brand Officer of Deluxe where the brand challenge was to reach small businesses. The solution? She created, produced and hosted their Emmy-nominated series “Small Business Revolution,” which streamed on Hulu and was named among Inc. Magazine’s top shows for entrepreneurs. Through this inspirational reality show, Amanda was able to prove the model of authentic content stretching a brand’s spend by achieving 12x the reach through this series over traditional paid media. The program accumulated over 13 Billion impressions, 6,000+ earned media articles and 20 million content views (and counting). Not to mention - this work changed lives, families, small businesses and communities across the country.
Amanda is a nationally renowned brand expert, Forbes contributor, and frequent on-camera personality for national news outlets and celebrity interviews, ranging from LL Cool J to Peyton Manning. She has appeared on CNBC’s “Cleveland Hustles,” in addition to hosting the online “Small Talks” series that features successful entrepreneurs across the country. That’s all while charting an acclaimed career that spans groundbreaking campaigns for brands like BMW, Reebok and Sony, in addition to her role as an inspiring female executive at Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, such as United Health Group, Allianz, General Mills, and Deluxe. Amanda’s current and former board service includes the Children’s Cancer Research Fund, Make-A-Wish, the Children’s Theatre Company, the Ordway Performing Arts Center, Ad Council, ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and the Women’s Business Development Center. She also passionately volunteers for causes such as Special Olympics, Feed My Starving Children, Habitat for Humanity and more.
She lives in Minneapolis with her husband (who happens to be her best friend), her daughter (who is a small but mighty force of nature) and their puppy (who is, of course, adorable).
How Can Your Company “Do Well by Doing Good”
Audience: Corporate (company-wide) and Marketing Departments
Modeled after her acclaimed TED Talk, Amanda loves to challenge whether “brand purpose” is just a buzzword? What does “doing good” really mean, in an era when social responsibility is table stakes, and every company talks about its triple- bottom line?
Truly innovative companies are no longer standing by as their corporate foundations cut checks to charities. They’re taking action. Not “volunteer for a day” action. Not “tug at the heart strings TV commercial” action. Action action.
Amanda Brinkman believes we’re on the precipice of a systemic, fundamental reimagining of what it means to do be a corporate citizen in the modern age. She’ll showcase a few bold companies that are abandoning “campaigns” in favor of creating cultural movements. Companies that are instigating real, sustainable change. Companies that are using their for-profit operations to better the world around them, while bolstering their bottom line in the process.
Amanda also has first-hand experience in bringing programs like this to life. She has transformed massive U.S. brands from the inside out by zeroing in on their true brand purpose – and putting that purpose into meaningful action. She’ll show how she took a century-old company that was known as a check maker and started a “Small Business Revolution” – ultimately creating an Emmy-nominated series featured on HULU that not only transformed the company’s brand - but had a ripple effect in entire communities across the country.
Most importantly, she’ll share simple steps for how companies can move beyond philanthropy and marketing messaging to create real, meaningful (and profitable) change too.
There are two audiences Amanda customizes this topic for:
- Corporate Audience (company-wide audience with multiple disciplines, focused on the “why” to pursue the creation of programs like this)
- Marketing Organizations and Departments (case study and ROI-building focused, the “how” to sell in and execute programs like this)
Do Well by Doing Good and The Purpose Pursuit
Audience: Corporate (company-wide) and ERGs
Modeled after her acclaimed TED Talk, Amanda loves to challenge whether “brand purpose” is just a buzzword. What does “doing good” really mean, in an era when social responsibility is table stakes, and every company talks about its triple- bottom line? She believes we’re on the precipice of a systemic, fundamental reimagining of what it means to do be a corporate citizen in the modern age and has first-hand experience in bringing programs like this to life. Amanda has transformed massive U.S. brands from the inside out by zeroing in on their true brand purpose – and putting that purpose into meaningful action.
She’ll show how she took a century-old company that was known as a check maker and started a “Small Business Revolution” – ultimately creating an Emmy-nominated series featured on HULU that not only transformed the company’s brand - but had a ripple effect in entire communities across the country.
Most importantly, she’ll share what she has learned in speaking with companies across the country about how we bring this purpose to life for each individual team member. She will share key take-aways from nearly a decade of research around finding and pursuing purpose. In response to what seems to be a post-pandemic "purpose slump", she will provide actionable steps for finding and celebrating our unique role and meaning.
Small Business Marketing Best Practices
Audience: Small Business, Entrepreneurship programs
Amanda Brinkman is the creator, producer and host of the Emmy-nominated series “Small Business Revolution,” which was featured on HULU, Prime Video and was named among Inc. Magazine’s top shows for entrepreneurs.
Each season the Small Business Revolution revitalizes a different community’s “Main Street” through small business makeovers. Every episode they help work to help the entrepreneur with marketing, finance, operations and physical transformations of their space.
Amanda will share the lessons learned in working with small businesses across the country, offering the audience actionable advice on marketing and communication best practices. Often small businesses feel they can’t afford the time or fiscal investment in marketing but Amanda is often quoted saying small businesses can’t afford to NOT to invest in marketing. She will share insights of the most important focus areas of your brand and digital footprint, sharing case studies from real businesses featured in the Small Business Revolution series.
Common Traits of Thriving Communities: Lessons Learned
Audience: Community, Tourism and Civic Organizations
Amanda Brinkman is the creator, producer and host of the Emmy-nominated series “Small Business Revolution,” which was featured on HULU, Prime Video and was named among Inc. Magazine’s top shows for entrepreneurs.
Each season the Small Business Revolution revitalizes a different community’s “Main Street” through small business makeovers. Every episode they help work to help the entrepreneur with marketing, finance, operations and physical transformations of their space.
Amanda will share the lessons learned in working with small businesses and communities across the country - and notably from their 6th season featuring Minneapolis and St. Paul Black-owned businesses. She will offer the audience actionable advice on supporting small businesses and common traits in communities that are thriving.
Women in Leadership
One of Amanda Brinkman’s favorite roles from stage is affirming and inspiring audiences of female leaders. She is an award-winning and accomplished executive, a mother, a wife, a community leader, a trailblazer and a #boss. She is confident. Human. Empathetic and Funny. Wise and Authentic. Amanda has opinions and advice to share but battle-scars to show too. She feels her role, from any stage, is to truly see the audience and share affirmations and encouragement. She has fought to prove herself in some of the same situations, has failures to share, triumphs to dissect and optimism to offer having “walked in their shoes” (albeit, this is that much more likely since she owns over 100 pair. It’s a problem).
Interviews – Executives or Celebrity
Amanda has interviewed hundreds of executives, entrepreneurs, celebrities and civic leaders throughout her career. Her natural ability to connect with the interviewee results in an engaging discussion for the audience. Her interviews are customized for the conference theme, allowing for authentic delivery of key messages by the executive or celebrity. Interjecting humor, natural conversational flow and stage charisma – the interview will be the highlight of the event.