Tatiana Muñoz Budelman

It was on her second day of journalism school that Tatiana Muñoz Budelman realized she had made a mistake. All around her, students were fleeing from their dorms, parents were frantically looking for their children, and medics were rushing into classrooms, as a pretend fire was consuming Syracuse University’s campus, and Tatiana—a textbook introvert—was having to go up to these strangers and ask them for a quote.

Even though it was all part of a mock exercise put on by the school, Tatiana knew right then that she wouldn’t be a reporter. But rather than cut her losses and drop out, as other students might do, Tatiana did what she’s always done when presented with an opportunity: she dug in.

From her earliest days, Tatiana has always had a deep love of learning. Never one to half-at something, she pursues each interest as if it’s the most important focus of her life. Whether that’s devoting 500 hours to becoming a certified yoga instructor, hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back in a single day, or jumping into a client’s workplace to learn their culture inside and out, she doesn’t do anything unless it’s all the way.

This commitment to learning goes all the way back to her youth, where she grew up in a bilingual household as a child of immigrant parents and discovered at an early age that she was immensely shy. But with that awareness also came a superpower: “I notice things,” Tatiana says. “When other people are talking, I’m observing. I see what they miss.”  

That power of observation, combined with her hunger for knowledge, has led her to a wide-ranging communications career, from the hallways of academia to the newsrooms of various publications to the corporate offices of some of the world’s biggest brands.

The holder of three degrees—a B.S. in mass communications from Florida International University, an M.A. in journalism from Syracuse University, and an M.S. in strategic communications from Columbia University—Tatiana previously led the communication strategy for Mars Petcare’s Science and Diagnostics division, where she oversaw the integration of more than a dozen brands into a single go-to-market identity.

Before that, she spent 12-plus years as both a corporate communications and social media manager at Colgate-Palmolive, where she led the digital communications for the consumer goods giant and grew brand awareness for two of the company’s flagship programs: the Colgate Women’s Games, benefitting female students across the U.S., and the annual employee recognition program.  

She’s also run events for Godiva Chocolatier, developed and taught two graduate-level courses at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications, and managed PR Newswire’s global intranet.

In 2025, she joined ROI and immediately jumped into supporting employee communications at Tiffany & Company. Married with a young daughter, Tatiana lives on the New Jersey shore, where she goes for long walks with her family and dog, devours self-help and beach books, and still reads the print edition of the weekend New York Times cover to cover.