Multidisciplinary and scalable experience.
Our team is integrative in background and thought, bringing together more than five decades of experience in strategy, communications, design, and digital solutions. We are a female-founded company. This diversity, combined with our passion and expertise, enables us to help our clients achieve success.
Why I Started ONWRD
For most of my career, I worked for other people's brands.
Heineken. FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. Baha Mar. Grand Hyatt. The Inter-American Development Bank. Each one demanded a particular kind of thinking: rigorous, global, high-stakes, little for approximation. What I learned, across all of them, is that the organizations growing fastest weren't just the ones with the biggest budgets or the boldest ideas. They were the ones that understood something most still don't: that how you communicate is inseparable from what you build, and that design — not decoration, but design — is a strategic tool, not a finishing touch.
I Couldn’t Unsee It…
The best briefs I ever worked on started with a business problem, not a creative one. What are we actually trying to change? What does the customer believe right now, and what do we need them to believe instead? How does this campaign move the revenue line, not just the sentiment score? That discipline of thinking from the inside out and letting strategy shape the creative rather than the reverse is what separates communications that look good from communications that do something.
I found that, too often, the work available in this region defaulted to what is comfortable: imported frameworks that didn’t fit, campaigns that looked like everywhere and felt like nowhere. Design treated as aesthetic. Communications treated as announcement. Strategy either absent or buried.
The Caribbean is not a footnote to global business. It's a $60 billion tourism economy, a growing hub for investment and entrepreneurship, and a region whose cultural intelligence is genuinely world-class. It deserves marketing built on the same principles that drive organizational growth, where strategic communications creates alignment, builds trust, and translates vision into commercial momentum, and where design shapes not just how something looks but how it works, what it means, and why people choose it.
ONWRD exists because I believe that standard is available here. We bring it.
Twenty-five years taught me that the gap between good work and great work is almost never budget. It's intention and the willingness to treat marketing communications as the strategic business function it actually is.
International-grade thinking, commercial understanding, deep local knowledge. That's what we do at ONWRD.
Key Team Members
Royann is a marketing and communications veteran with more than two decades of corporate experience with brands such as Heineken, FIFA, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Grand Hyatt and Baha Mar. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in marketing from the University of Georgia, a Masters Degree in Design Management from University of The Arts London, and professional certificates in digital transformation from KTH, Royal Institute of Technology. Royann is the chairperson of the digital transformation committee and a director at the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation. She is also the developer of Inspired/By, conversations about business, design and creativity.
Read Royann’s articles published on Forbes.com
4 Ways Burnout Increased My Happiness And Professional Growth
Embrace Your Identity As A Professional Venn Diagram
Gino’s business skills are an innovative mix of understanding international markets and organization development, resulting in assistance that helps clients to optimize their services. Gino started his career in asset management after completing a bachelor's degree in international business management and a graduation cum laude with a masters degree in strategic management.
John brings more than two decades of experience across financial services, professional services, real estate, manufacturing, nonprofit, and agency environments. His expertise includes content strategy, digital campaigns, brand positioning, marketing automation, lead generation, SEO/UX, and AI-enabled workflow development. At ONWRD, John supports strategic content development, brand positioning, PR-to-social integration, and digital growth initiatives for clients. His skills also include developing scalable marketing systems and AI-enabled workflows that help teams improve clarity, speed, and execution.
Chloe is a Marketing Coordinator at ONWRD, executing content development, social media, and digital design across client projects. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations & Strategic Communications from American University. Chloe’s experience comes from working with Nassau Cruise Port, Disney Cruise Line, and Robb Report, contributing to content, brand, and digital initiatives. Her interests include brand strategy and brand partnerships.
Shery Esmeralda is a project management professional with more than 10 years of experience supporting digital projects, marketing initiatives, and operational improvements. At ONWRD Advisors, she manages project delivery, timelines, workflows, reporting, and stakeholder communications, helping ensure projects remain organized, aligned, and on track from planning through execution.
With an MBA and a multidisciplinary background spanning business operations, e-commerce, and project management, Shery specializes in creating structure, improving workflows, and driving efficient execution across fast-moving teams.
