AGE: 37
POSITION: President, Creative Circle Advertising Solutions
RESIDENCE: Providence
LIFELONG AMBITION: To make the most of my talents and have fun doing it
GUILTY PLEASURE: Reading and watching movies on a beach
Sue Tremblay says her greatest achievement “by far” is the continued health and well-being of her two sons and her marriage of 13 years, “which has prospered through nine apartments in four cities.”
But it’s her professional accomplishments that earned her a spot in 40 Under Forty, especially her leadership of Creative Circle, a software company that builds revenue-generating products for clients that have included NBC, Media General and Providence Business News.
She has raised two rounds of financing for the company, totaling more than $1 million, in less than a year and achieved a nearly 30-percent market penetration in six months.
Tremblay also founded and continues to be involved in RoundOne.com, which created an online suite of content, social networking and collaboration tools for aspiring entrepreneurs, and she has her own consulting firm that helps companies improve bottom-line performance through marketing, public relations, better Web sites and other strategies.
A graduate of Tufts University, where she majored in English, concentrated in economics, was principal flutist of the Tufts University Orchestra and Flute Ensemble, and did karate, Tremblay started her career at The Sun Magazine, a literary magazine in Chapel Hill, N.C., then moved on to the Miami Herald while pursuing her MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She worked there until 1999, when she moved to Irvine, Calif., to run a successful dot.com for Freedom Communications. In 2004, she came to Rhode Island and became director of public relations for Trion Communications, where she worked until 2005.
Asked who the most influential person in her life has been, Tremblay said she has been “blessed in my life to meet a great number of talented, brave and generous people who have become friends and mentors,” but Sabrina Crow, the woman who brought her into the Miami Herald and later took her to Freedom, has made the biggest impact.
“Sabrina has achieved more in her career than most, and understands that personal balance is an important element,” she said. “The greatest gift she’s given me is the example of her own leadership and courageousness.”
