Arielle Gross Samuels

Arielle was named a Forbes 30 under 30 in Marketing and Advertising, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, and is on the boards of the Geena Davis Institute of Gender in Media, and Girl Up – United Nations Foundation. She is currently a Managing Director and Blackstone’s Global Head of Marketing. She leads the firm's marketing function, inclusive of brand, digital, video, design and events.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Samuels worked at Meta (FKA Facebook), serving as the Global Head of ESG Business and previously, Business Lead of Global Business Marketing. In her role, Arielle drove key initiatives that included running Facebook’s grants program to provide $40M to 10K black-owned businesses in the US to boost liquidity for those businesses hit hardest by COVID-19, overseeing Facebook’s commitments towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8 ‘decent work and economic growth’, and leading Facebook’s business sustainability presence. Her team led business equality actions for the advertising industry to take – including increasing representation in advertising and media, expanding capital deployment to diverse suppliers across the ecosystem, and running corporate partnerships with leading organizations like ADCOLOR, MAKERS and more.

Being with Facebook since 2013, she has held a number of roles at the company, including most recently serving as the Business Lead for Global Business Marketing and Creative, running the business of the global organization, and serving as strategic advisor to the VP of Global Business Marketing and Chief Creative Officer of Facebook. Prior to Facebook, Samuels did Engineering and Construction Consulting at Deloitte.

Arielle also serves as Board Director of the University of Illinois Alumni Association, Adweek Executive Mentor, Representative on the United Nations Women Global Innovation Coalition for Change, 92Y Women inPower Fellow, Women in Need Partner, Lead of Facebook Women New York, Founding Member of Chief, and Advisor for #BuiltByGirls.

Arielle holds a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, where she founded the Arielle Gross Engineering Visionary Scholarship Fund to accelerate the diversity of engineering students.