Kaitlyn Kornwise, Owner & CEO

From media sales to running her own agency.

Kaitlyn's marketing career started in 2013 at Michigan.com/The Times Herald (Gannett), where she was ranked in the company's President's Circle for sales performance. From there she moved into Digital Sales Manager at GateHouse Media — Journal Star, growing her book of business from $300K to $3.5M and earning a seat on the company's 15-person national Digital Advisory Council.

She went on to lead as Regional Digital Director for Lee Enterprises, overseeing $5.5M in digital ad revenue, and later as Dual Market Director of Radio & Digital Advertising Sales for Cumulus Media, directly supervising a team of 20+ sales executives. Along the way she also managed marketing and physician liaison work for a healthcare group and ran paid media for regional clinics before co-founding her own digital agency in 2024.

Today, that experience is the backbone of SoulRize Digital — a full-service agency built on the same principles that drove every campaign before it: a solid foundation, honest reporting, and revenue that actually moves.

Why I left corporate for good.

After more than a decade in corporate media and advertising sales, I made the decision to walk away — not because I didn't understand the business, but because I understood it too well. I knew the margins, I knew how to coach a sales team to hit its numbers, and I knew how to help a business grow. What I could no longer reconcile was spending my time generating revenue for organizations that showed so little genuine care for the people doing the work.

The turning point came when Callen's medical appointments began exceeding the paid time off I was allotted. Balancing his care, and making sure my daughter Kennedy's needs were met too, simply didn't fit inside a rigid corporate schedule. Once I understood how much Callen's life depended on his mother being able to manage his care without asking permission, the choice became clear.