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Authentic's Story

Authentic's story is one of purpose-driven entrepreneurship, built on a vision to help businesses Overcome Random Acts of Marketing®.

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Meet Our Founder

Jennifer Zick is the founder and CEO of Authentic®.

With more than 25 years of B2B marketing experience, Jennifer witnessed firsthand how businesses struggled with disconnected marketing activities that failed to drive meaningful growth. Her career prior to founding Authentic included startup, PE-backed, and global corporate roles, where she saw clients and her own internal teams facing the same challenge: executing random acts of marketing without the strategic foundation needed for sustainable success.

This experience shaped Jennifer’s vision for a different approach—one that would combine exceptional marketing talent with proven methodologies to help businesses build marketing functions that actually drive business value.

As a pioneer in Fractional CMO services, Jennifer has built Authentic’s reputation as a market leader serving clients throughout the United States and globally.

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Our Origin Story

Authentic’s journey began with Jennifer’s own unexpected career recalibration. A sudden job loss presented Jennifer with a pivotal choice: pursue another corporate role, or follow her entrepreneurial instincts to solve the pervasive problem of “random acts of marketing” she’d observed throughout her career?

After a weekend of reflection at her Minnesota cabin, Jennifer chose to build something transformational—a marketing leadership solution with a dual mission: help businesses tap into CMO expertise on a part-time basis, while enabling talented marketers to thrive in meaningful careers.

This vision materialized in March 2017 when Jennifer launched Authentic from her kitchen table. Authentic’s early work with a handful of clients quickly evolved into the development of the Authentic Growth® Marketing Operating System—a comprehensive methodology that addresses the root causes of random acts of marketing.

Through combining exceptional Marketers + proven Methodology + collaborative Mindshare, Jennifer created an approach that doesn’t just execute marketing tactics, but transforms how businesses think about and implement marketing for long-term value creation.

Today, Authentic has grown into a thriving community of marketing leaders helping businesses across diverse industries build authentic, healthy, scalable, and valuable enterprises through strategic marketing transformation.
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Building on Our Foundation

From its kitchen-table beginnings to becoming a nationally recognized marketing leadership firm, Authentic continues to evolve while remaining true to its founding mission. Our Authentic Growth® Marketing Operating System represents years of refinement and proven success in helping businesses move beyond random acts of marketing to build strategic, sustainable marketing functions that drive authentic business value.

By combining exceptional marketing talent with our proven methodology and collaborative mindshare, we help businesses not just grow—but grow authentically, healthily, and sustainably while creating meaningful career opportunities for marketing leaders who want to love their lives and love their work.

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