Our Team

Aura Arana, Creative Director

 Aura Arana is a creative director with extensive experience in social media strategies and campaigns for global retail organizations. She builds successful social strategies that increase brand awareness, promote customer engagement and ultimately drive web traffic and conversions with the utilization of multiple social media channels. With a passion in graphic design, she is able to create a vision that is relative to today’s tech-savvy audience. She graduated from University of Miami with two Bachelors, Communications and Studio Art, with concentrations in graphic design and motion pictures.

Isis Welch, Event Manager

Isis Welch is a native New Yorker with over five years of experience in the Entertainment Industry. With her bachelor's degree in Communications and Master's in Management from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, her work and skills range from Music, TV, and Film. Isis started her Entertainment career working as an intern at Epic Records, working for the promotions department and assisting with artist management. She branched off into the Film and TV world where she worked in all aspects of production on movies and TV shows such as “A Holiday Chance”.  

Currently, as the Event Manager for CMG, Isis brings ideas, confidence, passion, and a network of clientele that embraces the opportunity to work with an amazing team of talented individuals. Isis has successfully worked on projects for Harlem Fashion Rowe, EBONY Magazine, ADCOLOR, Fashion Bomb Daily, and continues to efficiently uphold the high standards expected of her.

Heaven dorsey, Event Manager

Heaven is an optimistic, fearless, and innovative millennial with over five years of production experience. She calls Houston, Texas home but her heart is bicoastal… LA & NYC. With a bachelor’s degree from Texas Southern University in Communications specializing in Radio, Television, and Film and is currently working on her master’s degree in Public Communication and Digital Media. Exceptional at wearing multiple hats, Heaven is adept at responding quickly to changing circumstances, and always maintaining an upbeat, can-do attitude. Over the past five years, she has worked with several brands, public figures, and non-profits from McDonald’s Gospel Celebration Tour to Solange Knowles, and more.

As an event manager, Heaven uses her trademark skills of problem solving, creativity, and flexibility to help clients produce events. She excels at logistics and operations, and her attention to detail results in events going smoothly from conception to completion. Heaven advances clients’ missions by making the most of their event experiences.

TANYA GUNTHER, VP, Client services & Experiential operations

Tanya is a valued operations expert, media planner, sponsorship strategist and industry leader in experiential production and logistics with over 15 years of experience. With innate ability to have a holistic view and connect the dots, she possesses an equal balance of creativity and innovation. She was Sponsorship and Operations led for high-profile projects at ESSENCE Communications such as the ESSENCE Festival in New Orleans and Durban South Africa, Festival People en Español, Black Women and Hollywood, Black Women in Music, My City 4 Ways, Essence Beauty Carnival, and Essence Street Style where she excelled at Operation oversite for over 40+ Fortune 500 brands like Ford, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola®, Walmart, Target, P&G, and AT&T to name a few. In her last role as VP, Operations for Programming and Production, at BET she developed an formulated guidelines for portfolio experiences that drove scale and managed programming partnerships and producers to elevate brand and client experiences. She led operations for the programming and production of Award-winning experiential launches including, I Art Hip Hop, Wrapped in Black and Soul Train Awards Weekend in NYC.

Carmen jones, Vp, Live events

Carmen Jones joins the team with more than 25 years of experience cultivating successful brand marketing and event strategies. In a more recent role, she led the Essence Experiential division tasked with strategic planning, development and execution of the brand’s notable live+virtual event franchises, including the ESSENCE Festival of Culture, Black Women in Hollywood and Essence Fashion House. Throughout her career as an award-winning event professional, she has had a strong track record of creating programs that have driven brand awareness, market growth and revenue for a variety of prominent brands including Volkswagen, Moët Hennessy, Budweiser, Lowe’s Home Improvement and Panasonic. Her portfolio has been featured at high-profile events such as NBA All-Star Weekend, NASCAR, Super Bowl, and the Kentucky Derby. The projects under her leadership have garnered recognition from The New York Times, Forbes, CBS, Billboard, USA Today, Hollywood Reporter, BizBash, Event Marketer, Entertainment Tonight and other major news and industry media. 

Mari johnson, account manager

Mari Johnson is an experienced meeting coordinator and an event planner with 20+ years in both corporate and philanthropic events and conferences. Mari has planned meetings, events and client experiences for groups as small as 10 and as large as 300+. She also has the experience and expertise needed to work with a client on programs that achieve the objective while exceeding expectations.

Mari works to connect with clients to develop program logistics which include venue selection, transportation, décor and entertainment as well as activities both on and off site. Mari can help develop a theme and vision leading to a memorable event and client experience with efficiency and ease. Mari holds a BA in Diversity Education and Training and has her MA in Operations from DePaul University. Program logistics and program management are her specialty and aid in the execution of special experiences and events.