I’m Cortina Caldwell - a fractional CMO, AI advisor, and brand strategist with 13+ years of experience building human-centered systems for nonprofits, startups, and social enterprise clients. I help mission-first teams scale their impact and become more profitable without burn out. In 2022, I became an AI early adopter and tested business use cases for ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Lovable, Perplexity, Canva AI, and others - reducing marketing, operations, and training time by 75% on average. My daily design tool is Canva (1,440+ designs and counting), paired with Notion, Mural, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite as well as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 where legacy files require it. I’ve trained 50+ ecosystem leaders on AI adoption, achieving 95%+ instruction-following accuracy in post-training audits. I’ve authored 12+ process guides now used nationally for AI readiness. I also manage strategic planning, campaigns, and training & development programs with 100% on-time delivery - applying my ICAgile training to pivot fluidly and stay on course. What I deliver: brand-aligned creative assets, annual marketing plans, AI-powered internal dashboards, stakeholder-ready slide decks, fundraising materials (contributing to $7 million+ in awarded funding), and replicable systems that train teams on design principles & branding. I work asynchronously across 3+ time zones (Slack, Zoom, Discord, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com) and am equally comfortable building from scratch, training teams on pre-existing assets, or auditing workflows. Let’s make your good work look and run better - faster, cleaner, and more sustainably. Ready when you are!

I’m Cortina Caldwell - a fractional CMO, AI advisor, and brand strategist with 13+ years of experience building human-centered systems for nonprofits, startups, and social enterprise clients. I help mission-first teams scale their impact and become more profitable without burn out. In 2022, I became an AI early adopter and tested business use cases for ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Lovable, Perplexity, Canva AI, and others - reducing marketing, operations, and training time by 75% on average. My daily design tool is Canva (1,440+ designs and counting), paired with Notion, Mural, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite as well as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 where legacy files require it. I’ve trained 50+ ecosystem leaders on AI adoption, achieving 95%+ instruction-following accuracy in post-training audits. I’ve authored 12+ process guides now used nationally for AI readiness. I also manage strategic planning, campaigns, and training & development programs with 100% on-time delivery - applying my ICAgile training to pivot fluidly and stay on course. What I deliver: brand-aligned creative assets, annual marketing plans, AI-powered internal dashboards, stakeholder-ready slide decks, fundraising materials (contributing to $7 million+ in awarded funding), and replicable systems that train teams on design principles & branding. I work asynchronously across 3+ time zones (Slack, Zoom, Discord, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com) and am equally comfortable building from scratch, training teams on pre-existing assets, or auditing workflows. Let’s make your good work look and run better - faster, cleaner, and more sustainably. Ready when you are!

Available to hire

I’m Cortina Caldwell - a fractional CMO, AI advisor, and brand strategist with 13+ years of experience building human-centered systems for nonprofits, startups, and social enterprise clients. I help mission-first teams scale their impact and become more profitable without burn out.

In 2022, I became an AI early adopter and tested business use cases for ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Lovable, Perplexity, Canva AI, and others - reducing marketing, operations, and training time by 75% on average. My daily design tool is Canva (1,440+ designs and counting), paired with Notion, Mural, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite as well as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 where legacy files require it.

I’ve trained 50+ ecosystem leaders on AI adoption, achieving 95%+ instruction-following accuracy in post-training audits. I’ve authored 12+ process guides now used nationally for AI readiness. I also manage strategic planning, campaigns, and training & development programs with 100% on-time delivery - applying my ICAgile training to pivot fluidly and stay on course.

What I deliver: brand-aligned creative assets, annual marketing plans, AI-powered internal dashboards, stakeholder-ready slide decks, fundraising materials (contributing to $7 million+ in awarded funding), and replicable systems that train teams on design principles & branding.

I work asynchronously across 3+ time zones (Slack, Zoom, Discord, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com) and am equally comfortable building from scratch, training teams on pre-existing assets, or auditing workflows.

Let’s make your good work look and run better - faster, cleaner, and more sustainably. Ready when you are!

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Language

English
Fluent

Work Experience

Communications Director at Leaf Community Arts
December 15, 2014 - January 1, 2016
Designed strategic communications and marketing initiatives that led to measurable increases in arts engagement and reinforced nonprofit brand voice. Coordinated donors, sponsors, members, volunteers, staff, and families; documented campaign workflows and messaging frameworks; created repeatable AI + Canva workflows; oversaw remote collaboration across three time zones; maintained unified messaging across all stakeholder communications.
Brand Strategist (Freelance) at Freelance / Self-employed
September 1, 2014 - December 31, 2024
Designed 50+ client-facing sales decks and social assets using Canva, consistently following strict brand parameters with zero format revision requests. Maintained digital asset repositories for 20+ concurrent projects and led remote collaboration across multiple clients and stakeholders.
Community Relations Director at Leaf Community Arts
December 31, 2015 - August 14, 2018
Designed 30+ event materials and educational curricula using Canva + Adobe Suite; achieved 100% brand compliance across external publications. Documented creative processes for 5 successful grant reports; led rebranding of the cultural arts team; facilitated collaboration among students, educators, artists, and community members; earned recognition from Kennedy Center Partners in Education.
Fractional CMO & AI Advisor at Freelance
December 31, 2024 - Present
Trained 50+ ecosystem leaders on AI adoption (Lovable, Claude, OpenAI, DeepSeek), achieving 95%+ instruction-following accuracy in post-training workflow audits Authored 12+ process documentation guides for recurring design workflows, adopted by 3 client teams as their standard operation Built a replicable AI + Canva workflow that reduced template search time by 75% or more and increased productivity

Education

B.S. Multi-disciplinary Studies at Liberty University
January 10, 2011 - May 31, 2013
M.A. in Business Management & Leadership at Liberty University
August 12, 2013 - May 31, 2015

Qualifications

GPT & AI Prompting Certification
June 1, 2023 - August 31, 2023
Full Stack Web Development Certification
June 1, 2023 - August 31, 2023
Creative Facilitation Certification
June 1, 2016 - August 31, 2016
Grant Writing Certification
March 1, 2017 - May 1, 2017

Industry Experience

Non-Profit Organization, Education, Media & Entertainment, Professional Services, Software & Internet