Mary C. Stephens is the founder of Estudio Inc., a marketing communications consultancy which provided creative services, market research, and business analyses to both private- and public-sector clients.

The firm's development integrated practices in digital technologies as they emerged with a long-standing, personal interest in cultural exchange and knowledge products. Ms Stephens is the author of a monograph for Avon Inc.,'Crossed Cultures: Idiom and Artifacts of the African Diaspora', and lead designer of 'NKA: Journal of Contemporary Art', the 1998 catalogue of the Johanesburg Biannale, produced in Singapore, as well as magazines and numerous educational text systems, distributed by international publishers such McGraw-Hill. Assignments to ITC/software ventures include IP development and strategies for hvbmarkets.com (.de), the New York African Film Festival (.us), Atlas Industres (.vn), TIG Global (.gov) and Sahel (.tv). Her twenty-three year career also includes conventional managment experience with print, broadcast, and event media advertisers in the USA. Consumer product clientele during this period represented a variety of industries -- automotive, travel retail banking, food and beverage, and personal health and beauty. Ms Stephens is an alumna of the Sloan Programme at London Business School (UK). She now lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.