Bonnie

Buol Ruszczyk

marketing strategist. speaker. DEI consulting. coach. mentor. facilitator. writer. outsourced CMO. 

bonnie@bbrconsults.com

404 423 4433

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Fun Facts:

Bonnie has worn many interesting career hats over the past 25 years, but there’s marketing somewhere under almost all of them because it was always her true path:

  • She was a sales and marketing assistant for a Jehovah’s Witness-owned auto parts company, who tried unsuccessfully to convert her.
  • She once traveled the country with Zach Braff, recording testimonial videos for SportBrain, for which she was a public relations director in Silicon Valley. She even landed the product on the Oprah show (“you get a SportBrain, you get a SportBrain…”).
  • She was an international marketing manager for Turner Broadcasting, where she helped launch TNT and Cartoon Network in Asia.
  • She worked in multiple creative managerial roles with software and financial services firms, which laid the foundation for her passion for and expertise in for professional services marketing.
  • She once owned a sauce company that made and sold marinara, barbecue, chocolate and salsa. Oh, wait, that’s not a marketing job. But it sure was a tasty one.

As a business owner herself, Bonnie just gets you. She loves helping other business owners reach their goals and watch their companies thrive.

I love that what I do is creative yet also strategic. I get great joy and a huge sense of accomplishment when I see my clients smile as they realize the marketing strategy we are suggesting is just what they need to take their firm to the next level.

Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk (like rustic without the “t”) is the founder and owner of bbr companies. More accurately, she is a client whisperer, marketing strategist, business growth catalyst and the queen of interesting, down-to-earth presentations. Since the firm’s beginning in 2009, Bonnie has led the company to become widely recognized and respected within the professional services marketing niche, with award-winning client websites and an outstanding history of business success. She is in great demand as a consultant, speaker and leader at various industry events as well and doesn't mind traveling to cool places to contribute in these ways.

On top of her marketing work with firms, she also helps them develop and implement diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Having recently earned a Diveristy & Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University, she is passionate about helping firms reach broader audiences, communicate more clearly and become leaders in the profession through training and program development.

Bonnie hails from Lakeland, Florida but has firmly planted roots in the Atlanta neighborhood of Kirkwood with her husband, Paul, and their two dogs, Bucuti and Tara (named after their favorite resort in Aruba). With original aspirations of being a journalist after graduating as salutatorian of her high school, Bonnie earned her bachelor's degree in journalism, public relations and French from Troy (State) University in Alabama graduating summa cum laude. She later followed up with an MBA with a marketing concentration from Georgia State University.

Fast forward a few years, and Bonnie quite literally wrote the book on online marketing for accounting firms, Take Your Marketing Online: Proven Ways to Grow Your Firm in the Digital Age, at the request of the AICPA. She also contributed a chapter to Bridging the Gap: Strengthening the Connection Between Current and Emerging Leaders in the CPA Profession and is a regular contributor and quote source for Social Media Today, AccountingToday, Entrepreneur, US News & World Report, CPA Practice Advisor and other industry-related publications and websites. She has been recognized as one of AccountingToday’s Top 100 Most Influential People and One to Watch, Volunteer of the Year by the Association for Accounting Marketing and one of CPA Practice Advisor’s Most Powerful Women in Accounting.

Never one to put aside her passion for marketing, small businesses and women’s issues when she closes the door at the end of the day, Bonnie also uses her acumen to help others simply because it matters. She is a founding member of the Atlanta Independent Women’s Network (AIWN), a former board member of the Association for Accounting Marketing and former president of its Atlanta chapter, a member of the CPA Consultants’ Alliance and former marketing committee chair and board member of Atlanta Chapter of National Association of Women Business Owners.

Bonnie’s ability to make delicious cocktails and tell interesting stories draws a group that often spontaneously gathers on her back deck on Sunday nights. Her other pastimes are cooking, reading, binge-watching Netflix and supporting her unnatural addiction to horseradish. She once finished a half-marathon, and while she’s proud of the $5,000 she helped raise for The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, the half-marathon experience isn’t one she wishes to repeat.

Click here to download Bonnie's speaker profile sheet.