Ms. Brooke Skinner Ricketts / Brooke Skinner Ricketts President & Co-Founder, Beyond Barriers

Brooke Skinner Ricketts is the President of Beyond Barriers Labs, a web3 leadership accelerator and community focused on empowering mid-career women while closing the gender gap in the leadership pipeline. Over the past two decades, she has led organizations spanning multiple verticals in global brand development, 10-figure P&L management, NextGen innovation, and strategic excellence to vault them to success. Her efforts have enabled dozens of entities to navigate complex challenges, develop deeper relationships with their people, and achieve enduring growth.

Ms. Skinner Ricketts has piloted transformative initiatives for some of the largest brands in the world, including all SC Johnson megabrands. Before joining Beyond Barriers Labs in 2022, she served as Chief Experience Officer for Cars.com, where she led all marketing and product functions. Ms. Skinner Ricketts made an impact not only by facilitating the business’s successful spinoff, IPO, turnaround, and record-breaking growth, but also by onboarding a diverse board and sponsoring hundreds of employees in Black Excellence United. Prior to Cars.com, as Vice President of Brand and Design at Avant and Head of Brand Strategy at Twitter, she delivered revenue-driving creative ideas for Fortune 200 clients. Her leadership also includes the role of Senior Vice President of Brand Strategy at DigitasLBi from 2011 until 2014. She launched her career at Doe Anderson and PriceWeber in Louisville, Kentucky.

Ms. Skinner Ricketts serves on the boards of Hyrecar, Monoceros, OneCare Media, and Chicago Cubs Charities, and is the proud founder of She100, an organization that empowers the LGBTQ+ community. A sought-after VC and PE consultant, she is a regular speaker and guest lecturer at SXSW, Social Media Week, Northwestern Kellogg School of Business, Northwestern Medill School of Journalism, and Notre Dame Mendoza School of Business. She has been honored by Forbes Magazine as a 2019 CMO Next and by Crain’s Chicago Business as a 2018 Notable LGBTQ Executive—and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, AdAge, AdWeek, Crain’s, and Medium.

Ms. Skinner Ricketts received her B.A. from Bard College at Simon’s Rock. She is an avid marathon runner and lives in Wilmette, Illinois with her wife, Laura, and their three kids.