Meet Jess Ferdinand
“If you don’t call me Jess, then I know you don’t really know me…”
Growing up in small-town Connecticut (outside Hartford). When you grow up there, you’re more affiliated with Massachusetts than New York. After a stint in Boston, completing a marketing degree, I lived in New York City at the start of my thirty-plus year marketing career. Moving here in my later thirties, it’s been good. But I do sometimes miss my friends from growing up back north…and the New England weather…if it never got about 70, I’d be ok with that. It being in the 80s in the fall, I have to sometimes work on my mood.
Moving to Houston was originally to be for a few years, with plans to move back to New England after that. That was seventeen years, a couple of kids, and countless memories ago and counting… While I’d preferred to stay there – that had always been the plan – Houston, with its diversity has allowed me and my bi-racial kids to really find a niche. They can explore their own heritage and that of others, it’s given them an acceptance and ability to explore. Well, and the cost of living is great too. I can take my teenagers to the arts here; it we lived in NYC, we’d have to think twice. I’ve actually purchased first-row seats to take my kids to the opera here – something I couldn’t do in New York – both for accessibility and cost sometimes.
I’ve loved marketing since I was a kid. I was always marketing some way or another – whether it was winning awards in Girl Scouts or partially funding college working on other’s papers, I know how to position things. My NYC career started out working with pharmaceuticals and health care. I’ve been lucky to have had some amazing opportunities – working on repositioning beta blockers and IUDs for example. Some great education based marketing, which is really a passion.
After moving to Texas, I took some more flexible jobs, particularly due to having a young family. But four years ago, I took a job at Legacy. Now it’s my job to make sure people know we’re here and how to find the resources we can provide. And once the become a patient of ours, making sure they’re proud to be affiliated with Legacy. I have a fourteen year old and a sixteen year old and Legacy has a great program for teens to own their health, so we’ve been fortunate to be a part of those robust conversations. I get to see it make an impact on my kids, which is beyond cool.
