Kristian Merenda

Kristian Darigan Merenda is a Lecturer at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business where she developed and now teaches a graduate level course in “marketing social change” for the marketing department.

Ms. Merenda is an expert strategist who advises the world’s leading companies, product brands and NGOs in their efforts to develop, manage and communicate programs that deliver mutually beneficial solutions for business and society. She has pioneered approaches to creating, managing and measuring global corporate citizenship platforms, nonprofit signature programs and the next-generation cause branding efforts. In her career, she has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for good causes and has helped direct more than one billion dollars in charitable giving and volunteerism toward significant social programs.

This work is featured in her seminal book: Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding, as well as in “Corporate Citizenship in China: CSR Challenges in the ‘Harmonious Society,’” which she co-wrote with Professor James Post for The Journal of Corporate Citizenship.

Ms. Merenda is also an adjunct professor at Harvard University Extention School. She has been a featured speaker for the American Marketing Association, Cause Marketing Forum, Harvard Business School, Duke and MIT, etc. in both professional and academic capacities.

Her work has been honored with more than 100 industry awards and featured in these books:

President Bill Clinton’s Giving

Philip Kotler’s Social Marketing

M. Cass Wheeler’s You’ve Gotta Have Heart

Jocelyn Daw’s Cause Marketing for Nonprofits

PR News’ Top 100 Case Studies in PR

Four of her most critically acclaimed efforts, American Heart Associations’ Go Red For Women, Microsoft Unlimited Potential, PNC Grow Up Great and Western Union’s Our World Our Family, have been turned into Harvard Business School and United Nations’ case studies.

Ms. Merenda has served on the executive review board for the Journal of Corporate Citizenship. She has served as an advisor in the creation of the PR News Nonprofit Awards and a judge for awards programs including those administered by PR News, The Publicity Club of New England and Net Impact. She has served as a member of the national boards of the American Heart Association, Boston University, HealthWorks! and changents.com.

For more than a decade at Cone, LLC she helped develop the cause branding practice, which was then widely recognized as the best in the U.S. That work continues today on a global scale at through Edelman Business + Social Purpose. Merenda has also worked in related executive positions at GTECH Corporation, Firebrand LLC, and the YMCA.

She received a BS in Marketing from Providence College, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and completed her MBA at Boston University, where she graduated with Honors and a subsequent invitation to join the Questrom School of Business faculty.

She resides in Canton, MA, with her husband, Justin, and sons, Liam and Nolan.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Merenda, K. (2011). "Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding", John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1
• Merenda, K., Post, J. (2009). "“Corporate Citizenship in China: CSR Challenges in the ‘Harmonious Society’”",
• Merenda, K., Kotler, P., Lee, N. (2008). “Marketing Highlight: Go Red for Women”."Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life", Sage 400-410
• Merenda, K., Daw, J. (2006). National Organizations: American Heart Association and First Book."Cause Marketing for Nonprofits", Wiley, 1 20-30

AWARDS AND HONORS

• 2020, More than 100 marketing, social impact and public relations Industry Awards, A