Medina is a leading voice on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the empowerment of African Americans, professionally and financially. Medina is differentiated by her passion for racial equality and also by her unique perspective as a Black woman having been an attorney in private practice and in corporate law departments, a senior executive at not one, but three, Fortune 500 companies, an international business owner in one of the most white male-dominated industries – asset management, and now as the principal in her own real estate development company. Medina’s legal expertise, business acumen and leadership skills were honed in legal and corporate roles which led to her breaking into the senior executive ranks at Cigna Retirement & Investment Services, Prudential Retirement and The Hartford Life Insurance Company all before the age of 40. At Cigna, Medina was the first Black executive and also the youngest executive in the company’s history. At The Hartford she was the first Black executive in the company’s history; and at Prudential, as with Cigna and The Hartford, she was the only Black executive on the senior management team. A champion for diversity her entire career, Medina served on the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity in Connecticut, as the Executive Sponsor for The Hartford’s company-wide Diversity & Inclusion initiative and on hiring committees and diversity committees. She has also been a very vocal advocate for the hiring and retention of Black talent.
She openly acknowledges that her journey should not have been filled with so many “firsts” and “onlys”. In 2008 Medina made the decision to leave the corporate world and launched Integrated Compliance Solutions Group, LLC (“ICSGroup”) at the onset of the Great Recession with nothing more than an idea, her savings, and the strong determination to leave her mark on the asset management industry. Over the next 12 years, ICSGroup grew to provide compliance and advisory services to Wall Street firms throughout the United States, the UK and Africa. Medina made history by becoming the only African American woman in the entire world to own an asset management compliance firm. ICSGroup is proudly one of very few minority-owned businesses to be featured in a Harvard Business Review case study. Students around the globe now learn from Medina and her entrepreneurial journey to launch and scale her company. After 12 years as an award-winning entrepreneur, Medina joined a very small group of Black women who have led their companies from birth through successful acquisition.
Medina now serves as an advisor to private equity funds through her role as a director at several funds. With the sale of ICSGroup, Medina recently reinvented herself by partnering with her 21 year-old daughter to launch TDS Builders, LLC, one of very few Black women-owned real estate development companies in the country. TDS Builders is managing several major renovation projects throughout Atlanta, GA and is currently developing a luxury residential community in the southwest side of Atlanta. The two women are passionate about developing high quality housing solutions for discerning clients. Whether its building 6000 square feet luxury homes, transforming blighted buildings into low-income housing, or designing town home communities, their focus is always on building high quality, functional living spaces, with attention to details that give their properties that instant wow factor. In addition to tending to her real estate endeavors, Medina also finds time to inspires and empower professional women and People of Color to live up to their greatest economic potential through her company, Jett Speaks, LLC.
Medina provides coaching for executives trying to take their career to the next level as well as to entrepreneurs trying to start or scale their businesses. She also provides workshops and talks on financial literacy, creating generational wealth through real estate and business ownership and closing the racial wealth gap. Medina is the recipient of many awards and recognition most notably: the Anti-Defamation League’s Torch of Liberty Award for her advocacy on social justice and racial equality issues; the Urban League of Southern Connecticut’s Diversity Award; the Tri-State Diversity Council’s Influential Women Award; and the Hartford Business Journal’s Top Women in Business Award. As the Alumni Speaker at the University of Connecticut’s Executive MBA Program Commencement, Medina inspired the Class of 2019 with her personal mantra “dream big and execute”. Medina is a frequent speaker on topics related to Diversity and Equity, Financial Empowerment, Leadership, Work-Life Balance, and The Power of Reinvention. She has addressed companies like HSBC, Standard Insurance, Prudential, the African Private Equity Association and Harvard Business School, among others. Medina earned a BA from Wesleyan University, a JD from Georgetown University Law School, and an MBA in Finance from the University of Connecticut School of Business. She is also a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program at Babson College. Medina is a proud 38-year member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Born and raised in Connecticut, Medina recently relocated to Atlanta, Georgia.
