Naomi Roter

My Story

When I was 6-years old, I went to a summer camp near my home in Albany, New York. The counselor went around and asked everyone, "What is your favorite color?" Naturally, all the girls began to say pink or purple, but I knew I wanted to be different, so I said blue. 

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This story is the perfect example for how the rest of my life has unfolded. At age 16, I decided to leave high school two years early to attend Bard College at Simon's Rock, an early college in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Finding my love for sociology, I later transferred to Skidmore College in upstate New York where I got my Bachelor's Degree at age 20. At this point, the COVID-19 pandemic was underway, but I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship as an English Teaching Assistant and spent the spring of 2021 in beautiful La Rioja, Spain with elementary students.

Throughout my college experience I fostered my love for travel, and started to combine it with non-profit work. During the summer of 2019, I lived in Merida, Mexico and volunteered at a children's rehabilitation center, El Centro de Rehabilitación Infantil y Teletón. I then spent the summer of 2020 doing a remote internship for an NGO in Jaipur, India called SMILE, The Society for Mobilizing and Improving the Life Experiences of Underserved Women and Children. 

Through this work, I found myself enjoying creative components such as making art with children or digital storytelling with YouTube videos. Though I didn't know it at the time, it launched my interest in marketing. My first opportunity in this field was as a Marketing & Social Media Assistant for Jewish Family Services in upstate New York. I later worked as the Social Media Intern for a non-profit called Bike & Build, and have since done contract work for the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Rutledge, Missouri, and for the Warren and Denyse Mackey Foundation in Albany, New York. I have now been working for GEM Coaching alongside Eric Horwitz since October, 2022. 

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Like the young girl who said "blue" instead of "pink," marketing allows me to continue evaluating the norm and help brands think outside the box for how they are reaching their audiences and engaging with them. In my work, I've discovered that marketing has an endless need for imagination, creativity and connection. This is exactly what I love about the work I do and know that everyone I work with has the same desire to dream big and think outside the box.