Edlynne Laryea could never have planned for the job she has now. In fact, at the time of her graduation, she couldn’t even imagine such a job.
“I certainly didn’t plan for my career to end up here,” says Ms. Laryea, Com’00, “because this job didn’t exist, the internet barely existed, when I graduated.”
As Meta’s head of industry, consumer packaged goods, Ms. Laryea draws on her extensive digital marketing and strategy experience to help established brands transform how they engage with customers. Her goal is to help companies navigate today’s complex digital landscape and generate measurable financial results.
Her position at Meta is the culmination of nearly two decades spent as a leader in digital marketing. She worked as a brand manager for Unilever in the mid-2000s as social media emerged as a marketing force. She also spent more than five years at Johnson & Johnson as the global director for the company’s social and digital strategies.
For Ms. Laryea, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in marketing has become second nature.
Her work on the now-iconic Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, which Unilever launched in 2004, helped usher in an era of purpose-driven marketing. The campaign’s goal was to help girls and women build confidence and the response was so successful that company sales increased to $4 billion from $2 billion in just three years.
“We knew we had an opportunity to look at it from a different perspective. The Unilever brand was about science, and we made sure the campaign was really about skin. We thought about it like a political campaign and the goal was beauty without artifice.”
The success of the campaign also helped challenge established industry practices, such as airbrushing, and paved the way for greater acceptance of diverse beauty ideals in advertising.
Ms. Laryea’s impact hasn’t just been felt in her chosen industry, but also in her continued relationship with Queen’s. She serves as a member of the Smith Advisory Board, which advises the dean on initiatives and strategy.
She’s also committed to giving back in other ways, such as speaking to Smith School of Business students on a number of occasions and spending a lot of time mentoring less experienced professionals in her field.
“I am very clear on what I represent. When I step into a room, not a lot of people are expecting me to be in that room or have the job that I do. I do a lot of mentoring; it’s really important to me. Giving back to Queen’s and showing that there were people like me who came through the commerce program 25 years ago matters,” she says. “I would love to see more Black women come through Queen’s; I want people to be able to work together even when they don’t look the same.”
Ms. Laryea is used to challenging boundaries and credits her time at Queen’s for preparing her for the demands of the business world.
“It was challenging. I was one of three Black women in the commerce program when I started in 1996. I think it’s come a long way, but what it did do is prepare me for the business world. The position I have, living in New York, which is the pinnacle of advertising and marketing, and to be able to hang with the best in the industry – it’s directly a result of going to Queen’s.”
