lanier global group.
ideas. marketing. thinking. brand development. storytelling.
™
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ABOUT US
We are a boutique, brand development and brand marketing consultant company founded in Brooklyn, NYC, currently based in Los Angeles, CA and working with clients and brands who reach global audiences.
We think, imagine and create solutions that strengthen the relationship between brands - be they products or people - and their audiences and customers.
We help build brands through effective strategy and communications; consulting on programming ideas throughout the creation, planning and execution phases; and helping to imagine, create and manage brand platforms, marketing campaigns and other initiatives.
We are both a mind and heart-led company, passionate about working with brands and people who love what they do, and clients who want to contribute to enhancing the lives of the people and communities in which they serve and profit – both locally and globally.
Aside from the obvious and expected, success for us is about living and breathing the values we believe contribute to making the world a better place - integrity, empathy, kindness and the spirit of collaboration to name but a few.
...& we like to laugh!
Suhailah
Founder + CEO
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PHILOSOPHY & SERVICES
"Do not go where the path leads, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our philosophy at lanier global group. (lgg) is that no two clients are alike, but that every client’s product, experience and/or service has the opportunity to enrich and add value to the lives of the people it touches.
Luxury and prestige brands naturally lend themselves to this notion, and while theirs are often seen as non-essential products and services, they do more keenly understand the emotional connection that is essential in order to garner the kind of trust that translates into lasting brand value with their customers and audiences.
We would argue (or hope) that the brands that are the most recognizable and most esteemed in the world…the Amazons…the Range Rovers…the Googles and the Apples, did not set out to be just great brands in their visual and verbal identity alone. Rather, they set out to offer exceptional products, services and experiences that enhance people’s lives in one way or another and so, as a result, have become exceptional brands in the process.
The late Apple founder Steve Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, said in an interview following his 2011 death that her husband wanted to create products that allowed people to work at their highest levels. What an incredible intention. And while we all don’t necessarily want to create the next great tech product or brand like Apple, we can certainly do our best to create products, services and experiences that make life feel and work just a little bit better. Perhaps, a little bit easier. And a little bit brighter.
The very word Logo, which is the part of a brand's visual identity that often makes us recognize a brand i.e., Apple's apple, Twitter's blue bird, Nike's swoosh and McDonald's golden arches, means "Word." Translated "Word" means purpose, a plan, a pattern. This means a promise, which is why when we say "He didn't keep his word," we mean they didn't keep their promise. It's an intention and it means to do something. So often brands forget or never think about this deeper promise outside of the bottom line and so they don't truly or consistently keep their word.
Our goal at lanier global group. is to help our clients come back to this by merging head with heart. We don't want you to create and offer products, services and experiences that are a consumer choice simply because of your financial muscle to be able to deploy advertising and marketing methods to make them highly visible and digestible to audiences often arbitrarily, and so temporarily. We want you to be able to have your audience feel something...because of a true and genuine connection, one that lasts and is bulletproof, because you have every intention and desire to help shift their lives in some meaningful way, shape or form and to stay with your promise.
At lanier global group. we think with our hearts as well as
our heads and so we believe in the power of intuition and
instinct as much as we do the power of research and data.
In the world in which we live today, IQ, EQ (Emotional
Intelligence) and SQ (Spiritual Intelligence) are all equally
necessary in the work that we do.
CLIENTS*
Don Julio, Tequila
HBO
Nas, Time is Illmatic, Tribeca Film Festival
Smirnoff
Guinness Beer
Coca-Cola
American Express, Small Business Saturday
L'Oreal
*Represents some of the clients Suhailah Yoba (Founder) has worked with past & present.
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FOUNDER
First name pronounced Sue-hi-la, Suhailah Yoba is a business woman, entrepreneur, storyteller and catalyst for change.
She is a strategic brand marketer and the CEO + Founder of lanier global group. a brand + entertainment marketing + business development consultancy firm; Creator of Awaken the Brand – a transformational personal and business brand development platform; and creator of The Femme Den where, along with her two co-founders, they hold a space and community for women across the globe as they seek and find their own inner wisdom, sense of agency and power to help evolve and elevate the worlds in which they find themselves in.
Suhailah’s passion lies in the exploration of human potential and the transformation of human suffering, starting with her own, as we all learn to remember our sovereign selves in order that we might create lives guided by a sense of purpose, wonder and joy.
An unlikely path to now…
A natural born seeker and the fifth of six children, Suhailah was
born in the Bronx, New York and raised by her father in Harlem before she ran away from home at the age of 16. Reuniting with her mother from whom she was separated from at age 4, Suhailah spent the balance of her teenage years living in both Chicago (very briefly) and Los Angeles, where as a teen her first job was as a fry-girl at a McDonald's in Beverly Hills - where she ate all of the fries and lasted about a month; her second job was as a cashier in a frozen yogurt shop in West Hollywood where she nibbled on yogurt samples with rainbow sprinkles and didn't last much longer than the first.
Extraordinarily driven and always one to follow her own heart instead of a crowd, Suhailah attended the Fashion Institute for Design and Merchandise (FIDM) in Los Angeles before dropping out when she received a full-time job offer as a receptionist for a Beverly Hills talent agency that handled some of the biggest names in comedy at the time, including: Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Damon and Keenan Ivory Wayans and Jamie Foxx. But as a highly sensitive teenager and a natural born writer who poured her heart out by writing verses on paper, she held secret dreams of becoming a songwriter.
Upon returning to New York City from Los Angeles as she entered her 20’s, and leveraging her work at the talent agency, Suhailah landed a job as a marketing coordinator for a comedy club on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and then left to move closer to her dreams when she was offered another as a receptionist in the New York office of a London-based Jazz and Classical record label. A tiny record label where everyone had the opportunity to do a little bit of everything, Suhailah worked side-by-side with one of the company’s owners and President and, before the age of 25, made her way up the ladder to Director of Publicity when she identified a need and created a role for herself in developing the previously non-existent PR/Publicity department, creating a substantial media data base and contacts that landed the label and its artists in the press.
Eager to move into the big leagues and even closer to her dream of songwriting, after an introduction through her oldest sister, Suhailah quickly jumped at the chance to be the Executive Assistant to the Vice-President of an international music publishing company that owned some of the most valuable catalogs in music history including the East Memphis Music catalog, which included rights to songs by Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and Al Green, among others in the Soul music genre; the German administration rights of the Essex Music catalog which included works by Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones; and the work of some of the most important songwriters in music history such as Rod Temperton who penned Michael Jackson’s “Rock with you" and "Thriller,” among others. - It was a dream job for her.
Like a sponge absorbing all that she could about songwriting and music through her work, and by reading every book she could get her hands on about the music business, Suhailah quickly became enamored by the business of music and left publishing for the record side of things when she was offered another Executive Assistant position to the Vice-President of Marketing at Island Records. In the music industry, Suhailah quickly found her calling and completely fell in love with the creation process and marketing artists and their music and the passion that went into it all. And so began the launch of a serendipitous and successful career. A career that has taken Suhailah through some of the ranks of the music industry at several record labels; from junior to senior roles at big and small advertising and marketing agencies building, managing, supervising and leading global brands and their existing or new product launches such as for L’Oréal, Guinness, Don Julio Tequila’s 1942 and The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) where Suhailah worked across over 90 countries and across the entire portfolio of TCCC beverages; to Chief Brand & Strategy Officer for the start-up production company of Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning TV and Film Director, Anthony Hemingway; to working with entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, influencers and celebrity clientele to help build and launch their personal brands and resulting products through the services of her Awaken the Brand by Suhailah™ platform, a company that serves as an extension of lanier global group.
With a strong rebellious streak grounded in spirituality, a sharp instinct and keen intuition that she has now learned to trust and follow completely, Suhailah has always danced to the beat of her own drum and stands as proof in her unshakable belief that intuition, knowledge (not just information), heart, focus, determination and faith and belief in something greater than ourselves are the keys to success. Still the ferocious reader that she was in her early career days, and still completely in love with brand development and marketing, Suhailah has become a dynamic and skilled executive at ease in the creation process of all things, and with all people. She is a dedicated humanitarian, a self-taught marketer and businesswoman, a writer and storyteller, a strategic thinker and a decisive leader who thrives in dynamically changing environments.
In June 2021, Suhailah completed Cornell University's program for Women's Entrepreneurship.
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OUR SPIRIT & SYMBOL
Lanier is the maiden name of my maternal grandmother, Gertrude Beatrice Lanier, whom I didn't have the opportunity to know beyond 4 or 5 years of age. The name Lanier derives from ancient French tongue and means a “falcon.”
My grandmother was born in the first half of the 1900's and gave birth to my mother late in life, even by today's 21st century standards, and so especially given the times she was born into at the turn of the 20th Century. Highly independent, private, cultured and sophisticated from what I've been told, my grandmother was a Milliner by skill and also an entrepreneur, but a "domestic" by day and night because of societal and class structures at the time. I suppose "domestic" was a more dignified word than saying servant outright, but it meant she lived with and took care of another family's family on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, doing her best to also raise my mother - who was her only child - on the side in Harlem.
I named my company after her - in honor of her - for her sheer existence. For all of her determination, will and hard work. For her creativity, her independent spirit, her class, her style, her strength. For the life that she lived for if it never meant something to someone or anyone else, thru my work and existence, it now will. I named it after her for simply surviving, so my mother could be here and so I could too. But, too, for all that she couldn't do in large part because of the restrictions set upon her in the country and world in
Photo Below: Gertrude Beatrice Lanier, My Grandmother, My Nana
which she was born and stationed. This is a nod and several rounds of applause and a standing ovation not only for my grandmother, but also my mother and all of the women who came before them in their lineage, all of the women who came after and those who stand now. For all women from all lands and all walks of life, of all races, cultures, creeds and colors, of every single size, shape and age, and to all of those who will come after me - in deep reverence I bow and tip my hat to you all. I see you, I hear you, I feel your spirit, I honor you and I thank you. For everything we have done and everything we have yet to do. Keep going.
Left to Right: 1. My Grandmother, Nana 2. My Mother as a child 3. My Mother 4. Nana again 5. Mother
Our Symbol:
Falcon - the king of all birds, and the fastest member of the animal kingdom with speeds recorded as high as 242 mph. lanier global group. has adopted this bird as its symbol as we align with its attributes of: grace, passion, commitment, spirit, light, power, focus, prophecy, freedom, aspiration, intensity, determination, discerning, liberty, wisdom, guardianship, purpose, precision, transition, superiority and victory.
As a symbol, if we have a goal falcons beckon us to make plans, calculate and strategies to obtain these goals; they are all about focus - strong, one-pointed focus. When they show themselves to us we are being called to focus on our desires and our goals and to do what is necessary to bring our desires into our reality.
This powerful bird awakens visionary power, leads us to a life of purpose, and carries with it a message of transition.
Falcons maneuver about the planet at rapid speeds while at the same time taking in all the details and maintaining a discriminating (as in discerning) mind. Soaring above everything…capturing all the details…and moving at some of the fastest speeds known to something that is of flesh and blood and breathes.
Just like lanier global group., the falcon’s message is about being discriminate in one’s choices, choosing with accuracy and precision, exercising restraint and reaping one’s ultimate success and reward as one progresses and soars through life.
The falcon is a solar emblem for success, victory and rising above a situation.*
This, is who we are.
*source credit: www.whats-your-sign.com (symbolism & signs)