

Kaira Rouda - Award-winning Entrepreneur, Marketer, Speaker and Author
I find myself looking in the mirror and realizing with no uncertainty that I will continue to redefine my life, my brand and my work." -- Kaira Rouda
Kaira Rouda is an award-winning entrepreneur, marketer, speaker and author.
Kaira is the bestselling author of REAL YOU INCORPORATED: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs (Wiley), founder of numerous companies including Real You, and brand creator of Real Living Real Estate, the nation’s first women-focused real estate brand.
In late 2009, and with the help of a tweet, Kaira helped orchestrate the sale of Real Living to Brookfield Residential Property Services, a Toronto-based firm with approximately USD $90 billion of assets under management. Kaira remains brand strategist and consultant for the company.
Kaira's first novel, HERE, HOME, HOPE (Greenleaf Book Group) was published in May of 2011, and won a 2011 Indie Excellence Award for fiction.
As an authority and sought-after speaker on entrepreneurship, branding, marketing to women, and work-life balance, Kaira has been a speaker at conferences across the country. She has been featured in Entrepreneur magazine, FOX Business, ABC, NBC, WomenEntrepreneur.com, ABC Radio Network as well as hundreds of newspapers, television and radio shows coast to coast. She is a favorite interviewee and contributor to online women’s communities, and radio shows, and was named to Forbes’ list of the top 30 Women to follow on Twitter.
Until writing her first book, Kaira had been the “Connections” columnist for The Columbus Dispatch for more than 10 years. She continues to write her own blog, on her website www.kairarouda.com and a free, weekly tip with a subscriber base of several thousand women. Earlier in her career, Kaira was a contributing editor to Columbus Monthly magazine and a freelancer for national and regional magazines including Midwest Living. Her first national magazine byline appeared in Bride magazine, shortly after her honeymoon.
Named 2008 Best Entrepreneur from the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, Kaira was recognized in Entrepreneur magazine’s inaugural Top 50 fastest-growing, women-led companies list. She’s also been listed in the top 10 real estate newsmakers of the year and one of the Top 50 most influential women in real estate by the industry’s trends report. Formerly Vice President of Marketing for an Inc. 100 firm and franchisor, as well as for her career in advertising agencies and media firms, she’s received multiple ADDY, Webby, Telly, Communicator, Prism, WebAward and W3 awards. She also to Twittergrader’s Most Powerful Women on Twitter.
Active in her community, she created Central Ohio’s first homeless shelter for families, served two terms on the board of the Mid-Ohio FoodBank, the YWCA, March of Dimes, The Wexner Center for the Arts and is an underwriter of The Women’s Fund.
She has received numerous awards for her civic service including the Ohio Sertoma Service to Mankind Award, Kiwanis Humanitarian Award, AWRT Women in Communication Award, Northwest Rotary Woman of the Year and the Columbus Board of Realtors Citizen of the Year. Kaira also volunteers countless hours to her kids’ schools.
Kaira is or has been a member of NAWBO, the International Women’s Forum, the Women President’s Organization, eWomen Networking, the Women’s Council of Realtors, American Marketing Association, the Google Real Estate Advisory Board, and is a WebAward Judge for the Web Marketing Association.
Kaira is a magna cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University with a BA in English, and has taken numerous graduate level writing courses. She studied with The Writers Studio in New York and has attended writer’s conferences including Antioch Writers Workshop and the Maui Writer’s Conference.
A mother of four, Kaira and her husband, Harley, have been married for 21 years. After residing in Upper Arlington, Ohio, for all of their married lives, the couple and their kids headed west, and now live in Southern California.
For more on her career, please visit her website: RealYouIncorporated.com
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