MEDINA JETT JD, MBA
"Medina is making a much larger impact on corporate America – by sharing her proven strategies to climbing the corporate ladder and launching and scaling a successful business."
Executive. Entrepreneur. Attorney. Speaker. Coach.
As this country demands an end to racial inequality across many spectrums, Medina emerges as a leading voice in the empowerment of African Americans, professionally and financially. Medina is differentiated by her passion for racial equality and also by her unique perspective as a Black woman having been an attorney in private practice and in corporate law departments, a senior executive at not one, but three Fortune 500 companies and an international business owner in one of the most white male-dominated industries – asset management.
Medina’s legal expertise, business acumen and leadership skills were honed in legal and corporate roles which led to her breaking into the senior leadership ranks at Cigna Retirement & Investment Services, Prudential Retirement and The Hartford Life Insurance Company all before the age of 40. At Cigna Medina was the first Black executive and also the youngest executive in the company’s history. At the Hartford she was the first Black executive in the company’s history; and at Prudential, as with Cigna and The Hartford, she was the only Black executive on the senior management team. A champion for diversity her entire career, Medina served on the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity in Connecticut, as the Executive Sponsor for The Hartford’s company-wide Diversity & Inclusion initiative and on hiring committees and diversity committees. She has also been very vocal advocate for the hiring and retention of Black lawyers and Black asset managers. She openly acknowledges that her journey should not have been filled with so many “firsts” and “onlys”.
As a Black woman in corporate America Medina is outspoken about the racial and gender bias she encountered. In 2008 she made the decision to leave the corporate world and launched Integrated Compliance Solutions Group, LLC (“ICSGroup”) at the onset of the Great Recession with nothing more than an idea, her savings and the determination to leave her mark on the financial services industry.
ICSGroup provided legal and compliance services to Wall Street firms throughout the United States and Africa and earned a stellar reputation for its advocacy for diversity of the financial services industry. Medina made history by becoming the only African American woman in the entire world to own an asset management compliance firm. ICSGroup is proudly one of very few minority-owned businesses to be featured in a Harvard Business Review case study. Students around the globe now learn from Medina and her entrepreneurial journey to launch and scale her company. After 12 years as an award-winning entrepreneur, Medina joined a very small group of Black women who have led their companies from birth through successful acquisition.
In 2020, Medina leaned in to her purpose and passion with the launch of her newest venture Jett Speaks, LLC, through which she inspires and empowers professional women and People of Color with her stories, observations and learnings. Jett Speaks focuses on four verticals: career development, entrepreneurship, financial literacy and diversity consulting. Medina shares her unique perspective of being both a Black person and a woman who has transcended barriers and mastered the corporate and business game. She shares the skills, strategies and unwritten corporate rules they will need to increase their value to their organization and excel in their careers.
Medina is the recipient of many awards and recognition most notably: the Anti-Defamation League’s Torch of Liberty Award for her advocacy on social justice and racial equality issues; the Urban League of Southern Connecticut’s Diversity Award; the Tri-State Diversity Council’s Influential Women Award; and the Hartford Business Journal’s Top Women in Business Award. As the Alumni Speaker at the University of Connecticut’s Executive MBA Program Commencement, Medina recently inspired the Class of 2019 to “dream big and execute”. Having been raised in poverty in a single parent household, Medina knows first-hand the enormous power of dreaming big and executing.
Medina earned a BA from Wesleyan University, a JD from Georgetown Law School, and an MBA in finance from the University of Connecticut School of Business. She is also a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program at Babson College. Medina resides in Atlanta, Georgia.