Barbara Maynard
CEO & Director of Visionary Strategy

After nearly 30 years of working in the public and private sectors engaging, activating, and converting people, Barbara Maynard grew increasingly frustrated with traditional methods and tactics that just weren’t working anymore. Drawing on her extensive experience, in 2020 she partnered with Rick Bender to create a technology platform that both modernizes and gamifies engagement and uses organizational affinity to build trust and deliver products and services that people need. Today, they offer innovative solutions through their company, AveNew Solutions, and their platform, Awespira, to help organizations effectively engage with their audiences in new, modern, and effective ways.

 

Maynard has been a successful entrepreneur and community activist for nearly 40 years.  With roots as a trader on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange and as Director of Budget and Finance for Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, during which time she owned a successful catering business, she then opted to devote all of her energies to her consulting practice. Over three decades, she has developed a reputation as a nationally respected consultant in the diverse areas of communications and public relations, employee benefit innovations, economic analysis and municipal finance, public policy, and strategy campaigns.

 

Ms. Maynard has also dedicated her time to local and global concerns. One of Ms. Maynard's most profound early accomplishments was helping to build houses in rural Mexico for homeless women and their children, building 120 modest homes in a 10-year period. More recently, Maynard organized a series of trips of mothers and children to El Salvador to provide 'hands-on' support to women and children experiencing extreme poverty and violence, providing them with a framework for economic independence. It has been her philosophy ever since, helping to lead and guide businesses and organizations wishing to do good with solutions that can get them there.

 

Ms. Maynard graduated with a degree in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University in New York. She is an avid outdoorswoman who enjoys adventure travel, skiing, and hiking with her energetic dog in the Eastern Sierra region of California. She chose parenthood as a single mother through international adoption, and is extremely proud of her daughter, who is now a Freshman attending the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she is continuing to ski race and dance.

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