Carla McDonald Day Kamp Austin

Carla McDonald

Founder and Managing Director at Dynabrand Ventures

Carla McDonald is the founder and managing director of Dynabrand Ventures and a nationally recognized marketing strategist with more than 25 years of experience helping companies build strong consumer brands. As the founder of Dynabrand Ventures, McDonald invests capital and marketing expertise in early-stage consumer companies to help them disrupt, redefine, and dominate their categories.

She also serves as a mentor at SKU, the nation’s leading CPG accelerator, and Capital Factory, an Austin-based accelerator, and serves as a board member and mentor at Beam, a non-profit that supports women founders. Before founding Dynabrand Ventures, McDonald ran her own successful marketing firm for 15 years. Her clients ranged from early- and growth-stage companies like Deep Eddy Vodka, Sweet Leaf Tea, Aquasana, and Zarbee’s to Fortune 100 companies like Microsoft, Best Buy, and Whirlpool. She also advised investment firms including L Catterton on companies in their portfolios. Before founding her firm, McDonald served as CMO of a Sevin Rosen-funded company that she helped to rebrand, reposition, and sell. She also served as Executive Vice President/Managing Director of the North American Marketing Practice at GCI Group, where she managed a team of several hundred executives in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico and served as the top marketing strategist for clients including Procter & Gamble, Intel, Pharmacia, British Airways, and Starwood Hotels. GCI’s Marketing Practice grew by more than 400% in 30 months under McDonald’s leadership, helping the firm earn its first-ever honor as “Public Relations Agency of the Year.”

McDonald also served as Senior Managing Director of the Consumer Marketing Practice at Hill + Knowlton, where she was credited with reinvigorating the firm’s Marketing Practice by attracting clients including Newman’s Own, Nantucket Nectars, Cointreau, and Cunard. McDonald joined Hill + Knowlton from a boutique PR firm, where she rose from Account Supervisor to Executive Vice President over three years, eventually co-running the 30-person firm and leading the marketing efforts for clients included Montblanc, TAG Heuer, and Champagne Krug.

McDonald is the recipient of a number of awards including the YWCA Leadership Award, the Girl Scouts of America’s Woman of Distinction Award, and the Austin Business Journal’s Woman of Influence Award, as well as numerous PR industry awards. She has also been named to Crain’s New York Business’s list of the top 40 under 40 executives in New York and PR Week’s list of the 50 best marketing executives in America.