Mary Calia is an award-winning communicator, innovator, author, and philanthropist, who has represented and promoted the American values of faith, family, freedom, and arts and culture, at home and around the world.  She has spent over 50 years inspiring others and helping them thrive and experience the American Dream’s standards of excellence, ingenuity, uniqueness, courage, showcasing to the world, our freedoms, culture, and humanity.  

 

She is a senior communications strategist for political, governmental, religious, cultural, and business leaders and won numerous awards including the 2024 Women of Influence "Trailblazer Award" by the Nashville Business Journal, the 2012 HERMES Marketing Awards Top Platinum Brand in the audio-visual category, for helping veterans with PTSD; the Mercuriades Award for the best innovative business alongside the Circle du Soleil and Financial Post Gold Awards for best annual reports in financial communications.  Highlights of her award-winning accomplishments include co-founding the very first financial communications consulting firm in North America, (Marcel Knecht & Associates, Inc. est.1982) representing small cap and Fortune 500 American, Canadian, European, and Asian corporations.  She made world art history in placing the first American artist, the sculptor Frederick Hart, (Three Soldiers Memorial in DC and ExNihilo bas-relief on the façade of the National Cathedral in DC) into the collection of the historic Hermitage Museum.  

 

Mary has created and implemented business, cultural and humanitarian projects with the Vatican, White House and US Department of State, House of Commons, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, embassies, academic institutions, public and private organizations, and interfaced with some of the most celebrated people of our times including Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI, President Nelson Mandela, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Queen Elizabeth, French President Francois Mitterrand, U.S. ambassadors, governors, senators, congressmen, Fortune 500 CEOs, musicians, rockstars, celebrities and people from all walks of life (www.maryhcalia.com/projects-moments-people).

 

She has authored Amazon best-selling books on the American Dream about Henry Ford, “Return to Greatness, Driving the American Dream,” with kudos from Ford CEO Alan Mullaly, Lee Iacocca and Bob Costas. Her book, “The Adventures of Sky Girl,” a fictional novel and bully-proof manual for kids, was endorsed by the American Pediatric Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, commending Mary for creating a bully-fighting hero that kids could emulate. Her book “The Love Listener,” an inspirational business novel, was endorsed by servant leader, Ken Blanchard, author, and publisher of the “One Minute Manager” book series, and numerous other works. Mary is also prolific in the arts. She has written songs for Celine Dion publishing and is a partner and fine art promoter with Studio Babailov. 

 

Her philanthropy is focused on children’s health, PTSD, STEM, and educational charities including a decade of communications consulting and support for the nation’s leading STEM program for under-served kids of diversity, Aspirnaut.org, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Joe DiMaggio Awards Philanthropy for children’s education for over a decade, and others. She was awarded The Malta Community Chest Award by the President of Malta for artistic support for under-privileged children, and she is the U.S. official representative of the International Charity Association, under the highest patronage of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova (www.maltacvs.org).  Mary supports seminarian education and is a communications advisor to and supporter of one of the nation’s leading mental health providers, Centerstone Mental Health, and Military Services PTSD programs. 

 

She has served on various boards and capital campaigns including the Jewish General Hospital, Ave Maria University, and is a founding board member of the Museum of American Military Experience, promoting verbal and written histories of veterans of war, now housed in the Tennessee State Museum.  She was awarded the Knights of Columbus Award for Patriotism and was featured as Bizwoman of the Year (Mary Calia Babailov) in the Nashville Business Journal.

 

Mary is an American cultural ambassador for diversity in patriotic leadership in the arts, culture, and business, and inspiring and educating a new generation to carry on, remember, honor, and pay forward. She has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of many high profile artistic, cultural, and humanitarian projects and an inspiring patriotic support in many having become legal and proud American citizens.

 

A second generation American, her grandparents came from Italy, Poland, and Lithuania, through Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th century.  Mary grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and is the daughter of a WW II Navy veteran, drafted twice, and who suffered decades of debilitating PTSD.  Driven by the pride of her father’s sacrifice and service, she helped her family emerge from the chaos wrought by PTSD and went on to lead an unparalleled career as one of the most accomplished strategic communications consultants today, representing and promoting America and its values through her global influence. She is inscribed in the European registry of family nobility, designated by the House of Romanov and is an official candidate of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, class of 2025.  www.maryhcalia.com info@maryhcalia.com