Richelle Parham is an American

marketer Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to empha ...

, and the former vice president and

chief marketing officer A chief marketing officer (CMO), also called a global marketing officer or marketing director, or chief brand officer, is a corporate executive responsible for managing marketing activities in an organization. Whilst historically these titles may ...

for

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

Early life

Richelle Parham grew up in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

. Growing up, she planned to become a fashion designer. As part of a

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

placement while attending

Drexel University Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Ar ...

, Parham worked at Valentino in New York City. She graduated from Drexel University with two bachelor's degrees, one in marketing and the other in design and merchandising.

Career

Parham began her career in

telemarketing Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subseque ...

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City Ba ...

. She then spent thirteen years at

Digitas Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and public relations company. One of the oldest and largest marketing and communications companies in the world by revenue, it is headquartered in Paris. After 1945, the little-known Paris ...

, where she held a number of roles including Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Chicago office. Following Digitas, she served as a marketing executive at

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

, overseeing the company’s global marketing services. In 2010, Parham left Visa to become Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for eBay North America. Parham left eBay in 2015 amid organizational restructuring. In 2016,

LabCorp Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, more commonly known as Labcorp, is an American healthcare company headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina. It operates one of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the world, with a United St ...

named Parham to their Board of Directors. She has also served on the board of directors of the Scripps Network since 2012, and serves as an advisor for

Girls Who Code Girls Who Code (also known as GWC) is an international nonprofit organization that aims to support and increase the number of women in computer science. The organization works toward closing the gender employment difference in computing. They h ...

. Parham joined the Drexel University Board of Trustees in May 2014.

Awards

Parham was given the 2012 Women of Influence Award by the '' Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal''. In 2013, she was named to the Direct Marketing News Marketing Hall of Femme, and listed by ''

Black Enterprise ''Black Enterprise'' is a black-owned multimedia company. Since the 1970s, its flagship product ''Black Enterprise'' magazine has covered African-American businesses with a readership of 3.7 million. The company was founded in 1970 by Earl ...

'' as a "Top 12 Innovator of Marketing and Advertising". In 2014, Parham was named by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' as one of the "50 Most Influential CMOs in the World", by ''Fast Company'' as one of the "Most Creative People in Business 1000", and by ''Savoy'' as one of the "Top 100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America". In 2016, Parham was included in ''Savoy's'' "Power 300, Most Influential Black Corporate Directors".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parham, Richelle Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Marketing people American marketing people American women chief executives EBay employees Drexel University alumni 21st-century American women