Leading Marketing & Communications Through an Organizational Transition
Arizona Business & Education Coalition | Organizational Transition & Marketing Operations
For more than 24 years, the Arizona Business & Education Coalition (ABEC) brought business and education leaders together to improve outcomes for Arizona students and strengthen the state’s future workforce.
In 2026, ABEC selected Education Forward Arizona to become the aligned successor to its mission and programming through an intentional asset transfer.
For our marketing and communications team, that meant more than announcing the transition. It meant thoughtfully bringing ABEC’s audiences, resources, digital presence, and history into Education Forward Arizona while giving members and partners a clear path forward.
My role touched both sides of the transition: how we communicated the change and how we made it work behind the scenes.
Stewarding the Transition
Ricardo Lopez Valencia
Senior Vice President, Education and Workforce Alignment
“Isabel, thank you for your stewardship of this important work and for ensuring that we are going to meet our objective and timeline to welcome and integrate ABEC into the Education Forward Arizona coalition.”
“Thank you so much for taking care of the needs of one of partners acquired through the ABEC transfer. As a matter of fact I was with Danny yesterday and am pleased to report he is an EFA fan and was very generous in his introduction of Education Forward Arizona. We have a fan and I want you to know these are important projects to the community and your care of them does not go unnoticed or appreciated."
The Work
I worked across leadership, our MarCom team, external partners, and vendors to help move the transition from planning through launch and ongoing integration.
My work included shaping transition messaging, coordinating the new ABEC landing experience, supporting partner and member communications, managing digital channels and inherited assets, and helping guide how ABEC audiences would transition into EFA’s communications.
At the same time, I helped keep the operational pieces moving so the public-facing experience and the work happening behind the scenes stayed connected.
My Role
Audience & Communication Strategy
Worked through how ABEC audiences should transition into EFA communications, including understanding legacy segmentation, shaping new audience classifications, and helping create a more thoughtful onboarding experience.
Marketing Operations
Managed inherited marketing accounts and assets within my scope, coordinated access and dependencies, and helped determine what needed to remain available, what should move into EFA systems, and what could eventually be retired.
Transition Planning & Coordination
Helped coordinate MarCom priorities, timelines, leadership reviews, external partners, and digital work as ABEC’s programs and audiences began moving into EFA.
Content Leadership
Led content strategy and governance across the experience, establishing messaging priorities, resource architecture, and content standards that strengthened audience relevance while creating a sustainable framework for ongoing management and future expansion.
The Approach
I didn’t want the transition to feel like we were simply moving things from one organization to another.
That meant understanding ABEC’s audiences before folding them into EFA communications, keeping important resources accessible while partners still needed them, and using existing channels to help people understand where to go next.
The email strategy, for example, was designed around a phased and segmented onboarding approach rather than moving everyone immediately into standard EFA communications.
The goal was to make the transition work for the people experiencing it, not just for the systems behind it.
Result & Outcome
50
ABEC Members attended the welcome webinar
2K
New contacts added to EdFwd's network
24
Year legacy preserved and expanded upon
4
New resource curriculum's added to EdFwd's portfolio