Gaby Cardenas is an award-winning marketer and entrepreneur with more than 22 years of experience in marketing, advertising, and strategic communications. She was raised in a family of entrepreneurs, honing her business acumen at a young age as she helped with the family’s small business. After rising through the ranks of corporate America, in 2017 Gaby founded The Colibri Collective: the first Latina-owned digital marketing firm in Phoenix, Arizona. Since then, she has taken her agency to new heights, winning campaigns that mobilize and engage diverse audiences with data, skill, and emotion across a national footprint.
In 2022, after 5+ years of remarkable growth, The Colibri Collective opened a new division based in Los Angeles to expand the company’s footprint. This new division of The Colibri Collective focuses on political and advocacy client work and has already yielded exciting new partnerships.
Under Gaby’s leadership, in 2022 The Colibri Collective was also selected by both the NFL and the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee to provide Spanish translation and PR services for Super Bowl LVII. The Colibri Collective’s publicity efforts contributed to the attendance of nearly 300,000 fans at the Super Bowl Experience at the Phoenix Convention Center and Hance Park, including nearly 25,000 fans who enjoyed the first ever Super Bowl Watch Party.
Gaby prides herself in delivering each project for her clients with a high level of quality and aesthetic. Driving campaigns from the ground up, Gaby leads with a precise understanding of what mobilizes and engages audiences to bring campaigns to life. In her role as The Colibri Collective’s CEO, she partners with clients that align with her values to create meaningful change.
Both Gaby and The Colibri Collective have received multiple national awards and repeated recognition for excellence in marketing and digital strategy. Gaby has been awarded by Independent Voting and named a Women Achiever of Arizona by the Arizona Capitol Times. She was also recognized with the coveted 40 Under 40 Hispanic Leaders award and is an Athena Award nominee. Her work for The Colibri Collective has also been nationally recognized with the 2021 USPS Best of Best for Direct Mail, a 2021 CampaignTech Award for Innovation in Voter Contact, and has received multiple Reed and AAPC Pollie Awards for innovative work. The agency has also been recognized as the best in the industry for several years in a row for Spanish language websites.
In addition to her entrepreneurship, she has demonstrated a deep commitment to volunteering and mentorship to uplift the local community. She is a board member of both the International Women’s Forum Arizona, Arizona Donors Alliance and ALL in Education.