Jessica Merz

Jessica Merz has a diverse work experience spanning over two decades. Jessica started their career as a Public Relations Coordinator at Lucent Technologies in Latin America and the Caribbean from October 1998 to September 1999. Jessica then joined Johnson & Wales University as a Communications Coordinator, where they oversaw media relations and coordinated special events from September 1999 to August 2000. After that, they worked at Lucent Technologies in the Caribbean and Latin America as an Executive Communications & Employee Information Manager from October 2000 to November 2002, where they established leadership communications and increased web hits on the intranet.

Jessica then joined DHL as a Senior Manager of Corporate Communications from September 2003 to January 2009. In this role, they were responsible for communicating to a large workforce and managed internal communications for acquisitions and divestitures. Following their tenure at DHL, they worked at ADT North America as a Director of Employee Communications from September 2009 to May 2011. Here, they developed leadership and manager communications and played a crucial role in supporting mergers and integrating policies.

From May 2011 to December 2018, Jessica worked at Bacardi, one of the largest privately held spirits companies, in various roles. Jessica started as a Director of Global Internal Corporate Communications, where they built the company's first internal communications team and launched a successful mobile platform for employee communication. Jessica later moved to the position of Director of Global External Corporate Communications, where they were responsible for corporate media relations, online reputation management, and crisis management. In April 2021, they were promoted to Global Head of Corporate Communications, and finally, in April 2022, they became the VP of Global Corporate Communications.

Throughout their career, Jessica demonstrated strong leadership skills and expertise in corporate communications, media relations, crisis management, and internal communications.

Jessica Merz completed their High School Diploma at Inter-American Academy in 1994. Jessica then pursued a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Miami from 1994 to 1998, with a major in Public Relations and minors in Marketing and German. In 1998, they attended Leipzig University to study International PR and German. Additionally, in 1997 they also briefly studied German at the University of Tübingen. Jessica obtained a Masters of Science in Communications Management from Syracuse University between 2009 and 2011. Finally, they attended Harvard Business School from 2016 to 2018 for executive education.