Darling Jimenez is a marketing executive, publishing house founder, and debut novelist who speaks on storytelling, building, and the narratives that shape what we're capable of creating. Available for keynotes, panels, and podcast conversations.
Darling's signature keynote is a framework-driven talk on how internal narratives shape external output — delivered with the strategic rigor of a marketing executive and the craft of a novelist.
Before you can tell a story to the world, you have to survive the story you tell yourself. Darling Jimenez — marketing executive, publishing house founder, and debut novelist — has spent her career helping brands, authors, and clients find the story that makes everything else possible. In this talk, she shares the framework she uses across every company and every manuscript: why the stories we tell internally shape what we're capable of building externally, and how to rewrite the ones that are costing you.
How to identify the internal story driving your team, your brand, or your own decision-making — and spot the one that's limiting you.
A three-part method for rewriting the narrative — drawn from both brand strategy and fiction craft.
Real case studies from building a marketing agency, a publishing house, and writing a novel that started as a story told to herself.
For event programmers building specific tracks — founder stages, identity-driven programming, or leadership summits — Darling offers two additional signature talks.
Every company, every book, every movement started with someone deciding they had the authority to tell it. A talk on what it actually costs to build the thing that doesn't exist yet — the doubt you learn to carry, the rooms you learn to enter, and the specific kind of courage it takes to sign your name to something.
The title of Darling's debut novel, and the instruction manual for her career. A Dominicana and Columbia grad on how to ascend without assimilating — how to build in rooms you weren't invited into while staying loyal to the home you were built in.
Darling is a former Toastmaster with a decade of public speaking experience. She brings frameworks, stories, and specific opinions to every conversation — not generic advice. Below are the topic areas she goes deepest on, plus sample questions to make your prep effortless.
How internal narratives shape what leaders, founders, and creatives are capable of building — and how to rewrite them.
Starting a marketing agency, a publishing house, and writing a novel — as a Dominicana who wasn't handed a playbook.
What it means to be a first-gen Latina operator — the tax, the tension, and what she wishes she'd known earlier.
The operator's reality of running a marketing practice and a publishing house simultaneously — what scales, what doesn't.
Why she founded Palma & Ink, what the publishing industry gets wrong about underrepresented stories, and where it's going.
Darling Jimenez builds what doesn't exist yet. A Columbia-educated marketing executive and founder, she runs a marketing and advertising agency and is the founder of Palma & Ink, a publishing house dedicated to bringing underrepresented stories to mainstream readers. Her debut novel, Roots That Reach the Stars, will be published in 2026.
Darling speaks on the stories that shape what we're capable of building — from brand narrative to personal identity to the craft of fiction. A former Toastmaster with a decade of public speaking experience, she has addressed audiences at HubSpot User Groups, the UNCC Coding Bootcamp, and conferences across the Southeast on entrepreneurship, marketing, and leadership.
She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
A selection of recent and past speaking engagements, interviews, and recognized platforms. Available for keynote, panel, fireside, and virtual formats.
For speaking inquiries, podcast bookings, and media requests — reach out directly. Responses typically within two business days.
darling@darlingjimenez.com →