Huma Gruaz
President/CEO

MBA
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

MA
Willem de Kooning Academy
Rotterdam, NL

BA
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr , PA

Huma Gruaz, founder/president/CEO of Alpaytac Inc., is an expert in public relations and marketing with over 15 years experience in the industry. In 2004, she founded Alpaytac, with the goal of providing strategic ROI-driven PR, contributing to the fast growth of some of today's most cutting edge organizations both in consumer products and B2B industries. Alpaytac's impressive client portfolio includes: dreamGEAR, one of Entrepreneur magazine's 2007 Hot 500 companies; Shark-Euro Pro, a leading provider of some of the most innovative housewares products; Ultimate Ears, market leader in supplying custom ear monitors to the world's top musicians; Solicore, a pioneering embedded power solutions provider to the largest card manufacturers across the globe.

Huma has been instrumental in developing new product categories in the consumer electronics and housewares industries, and her work has directly impacted the bottom line of her clients. Huma has also been recognized as a principal contributor to Shark Euro-Pro's success in the launch of its new products for the past three years. Under Huma's direction, Alpaytac secured unprecedented total impressions for Shark in a little over three years, totaling over 600,000,000, with an ad buy value of over $30 million.

Jeff Frankel, VP of Sales and Operations of Shark Euro-Pro, had this to say about Huma Gruaz: "Ms. Gruaz has an ability to read our customers' minds; we feel her advice on PR and marketing has helped us grow our sales from 200 million to 300 million over the last two years. She is a trusted vendor and advisor and is one of the few who we consider to be a partner and who pushes our company to excellence."

Huma has consistently secured stories for her clients in top tier U.S. media such as TIME , The Wall Street Journal , The New York Times , USA Today , and Parade as well as on major television programs including CNN, CNBC, The Today Show , and Good Morning America.

Prior History
Huma's work with major worldwide corporations includes consulting on strategic marketing and PR initiatives. Former multi-national clients include Hoover Company, Spice Islands, Shell, Unilever and Philips Electronics.

Huma started her career at Ogilvy & Mather as an intern and became one of the fastest promoted executives in the history of the agency after the advertising campaigns she helped create led the agency to acquire some of the key accounts including Shell Corporation, Unilever's Aymar and Philips Electronics. After her experience at Ogilvy, she worked as marketing manager of a Swiss Innovations Company based in Holland for 4 years and subsequently, she entered the PR industry in Chicago in 2000 working on national campaigns for some of the nation's largest brands.

Other Information
Huma is a graduate of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management with a Master of Business Administration. The global Kellogg School Executive MBA program has been ranked No. 1 by BusinessWeek for over a decade, and was recently named by the Wall Street Journal as the top Executive MBA program in the country, recruiting only the top executives from elite corporations worldwide.

Prior to her education at Kellogg, Huma graduated Magna Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr College, PA with a double major in Economics and Fine Arts. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Huma's artistic passion and creativity give her PR and marketing strategies an extra edge.

Huma is the former president of Turkish American Cultural Alliance. She is fluent in four languages: Turkish, English, French and Dutch. Huma has won several personal and professional awards including the prestigious Daughters of Ataturk Award and a lifetime achievement award in 2003. She is also a recipient of the "Outstanding Athlete" and "Alumni Association Arts Award" at Robert College, making her one of only two students in a class of 110 to receive dual honors during her high school graduation. Huma is a former Turkish national swimming champion, record holder and member of the Turkish National Swimming team.