Paula Grooms has been involved with Ingenuity since its inception in 2004.  Grooms was named Executive Director of Ingenuity in 2009, after spending two years on staff as Managing Director and a year on Ingenuity’s Board of Directors.  Grooms originally joined the Ingenuity staff with the vision of managing and implementing Ingenuity’s aggressive marketing and sponsorship campaign, bringing to it more than 30 years of creative and event marketing experience.

Grooms is a experienced manager of multi-functional teams for both the corporate and non-profit worlds.  Grooms is also a respected expert in the areas of public relations, marketing, communications, media planning and sales, print production, web development, and video, film, and multimedia production.  In her former role as a Senior Vice President at IMG, an international sports, entertainment, and lifestyle marketing/management agency, Grooms spearheaded their business communications worldwide, managed marketing programs for celebrity clients and large scale events, collaborated routinely with IMG’s top executives and corporate clients, and managed the roll-outs of two new corporate branding initiatives.

Before IMG, Grooms was the President and Executive Producer for College Previews, and also owned and operated her own graphic design, film, video, and multi-media production company for nine years. Grooms sat on the Board of Directors for MOCA Cleveland (Museum of Contemporary Art) from 2002 to 2007, and is the founding president of the Cleveland Chapter of WISE (Women in Sports and Events).

Grooms has been an active mentor with the Cleveland Foundation’s Civic Innovation Lab, and has served on the local organizing and marketing committees for several major events in Cleveland over the years, including the Intel Science and Engineering Fair, The International Children’s Games, and the NCAA Women’s Final Four of Basketball.

Grooms’ artistic routes are deep.  Beginning with studies at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Dayton Art Institute, Grooms earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, with majors in painting and printmaking, from Miami University.  Grooms continued her studies in intaglio process printmaking with graduate studies at the University of Iowa and advanced her business acumen through graduate studies at Case Western Reserve University. Grooms originally became involved with Cleveland’s non-profit arts scene as board member and three-term president of NOVA, the New Organization for the Visual Arts.  Grooms’ artworks have been showcased in exhibitions and competitions at various locations throughout Northeast Ohio, including in the May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art.