Teresa A. Zubizarreta
President and CEO - Zubi Advertising

Teresa A. Zubizarreta, affectionately known by all as Tere Zubi, began her career in 1962 as a secretary at the McCann/Marschalk Advertising Agency in Miami, Florida.

Agency management quickly found that Tere’s skills went beyond typing as she learned more about the ad business. As a result, she was promoted to account management within three years. Her experience and success in the business continued over the next eight years as she handled accounts for other agencies as well as for EHG Enterprises, where she directed all of the advertising and public relations for the firm’s residential development projects in Dade County, Puerto Rico and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

Exhausted from commuting between Miami and San Juan and sensing an opportunity to create her own agency to service South Florida’s increasingly affluent Hispanic market, she left EHG and ventured out on her own. With her own self-confidence, an answering service, and the help of friends who lent her office space, she pitched her first client who gave her a retainer fee of $465. That check not only financed the first account, but also the initial program that created opportunity for the eventual success and expansion of Zubi Advertising Services, Inc.

Zubi Advertising now has annual projected billings for 2004 of over $147 million, a full-time staff of more than 110 professionals at its headquarters in Miami and satellite offices in Detroit, Los Angeles and Dallas, where the agency creates award-winning advertising for blue chip accounts. Zubi services more than 25 accounts, including local, national and multinational businesses.

Tere Zubi’s business acumen and leadership have brought results not only to her agency but also to the community in which she has lived and worked for more than 40 years. She has been an active community leader locally and nationally, serving on the boards of organizations such as the Orange Bowl Committee, the Beacon Council, Miami Children’s Hospital’s Board of Trustees, United Way of Dade County, and United Way of America, where she is as the first Hispanic woman to Chair a committee and be elected to its Board of Governors. In addition, Tere is a member of United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Society, which just honored her in 2001 with their highest award for service to the community. She is also a co-founder and past chairperson of FACE (Facts About Cuban Exiles).

Finding the time to manage the growth of a business as well as perform civic responsibilities might overwhelm some, but not Tere Zubi, who finds harmony and contentment fulfilling these kinds of challenges. We believe it is a combination of her genius, creativity and compassion that has driven the agency’s success and reputation in the industry.

Tere and her husband, Octavio, live in Coconut Grove, Florida. They have two children, Joe and Michelle – who manage Zubi Advertising alongside their mother – and two grandchildren, Charlotte and Michael.