Tracey Felicidade Jones is the CEO and Founder of Trace Brand Building, a global branding and marketing agency with operations in South Africa and the United States. With over 20 years of experience in FMCG and pharma, Tracey’s leadership has earned her company an impressive client list, helping international brands like Dr. Oetker and Novartis build memorable, iconic brands. Tracey’s journey growing up in South Africa during and after apartheid and later expanding her business in the US gives her a uniquely resilient perspective on brand building and entrepreneurship.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [02:17] Tracey Felicidade Jones talks about the grit and resilience she learned growing up in South Africa
- [10:18] How Tracey built a global agency across two continents
- [15:45] The impact of cultural differences on business connections
- [18:05] Why brand archetype is the key to marketing
- [21:54] How AI is changing agencies and why adaptability wins
- [27:30] The skills future generations need to thrive with AI
In this episode…
What does it really take to rebuild your life and business from the ground up? For some, reinvention is a branding exercise. For others, it’s survival. How do you start over in a new country, in a new market, and still manage to build something stronger than before?
For Tracey Felicidade Jones, a brand marketing expert, the answer begins with grit and perspective. A lifelong entrepreneur who has faced everything from rolling blackouts to armed hijackings in South Africa, Tracey believes that true brand reinvention mirrors personal resilience. Drawing on her background in dietetics, global marketing, and storytelling, she built a business rooted in authenticity — helping companies rediscover their identity through archetypes and emotional connection. After relocating to Colorado, she reimagined her agency to fit the American market, proving that adaptability and heart can turn disruption into growth. Her story is a reminder that great brands, like great people, thrive by staying true to their essence while boldly embracing change.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Tracey Felicidade Jones, CEO and Founder of Trace Brand Building, to discuss how she reinvented her global agency after moving from South Africa to the US. Tracey also shares her vision for the future of creative leadership and the value of staying authentic in a rapidly changing world.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Rise25
- Podcast Co-Pilot
- Tracey Felicidade Jones: LinkedIn | Email
- Trace Brand Building
Special Mention(s):
- Scaling.com
- The Science of Scaling: Grow Your Business Bigger and Faster Than You Think Possible by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Blake Erickson
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
Quotable Moments:
- “We just make a plan, you know, we just kind of get on with it.”
- “No one’s coming to save you, and if it means that, you know, we’ll make the money back.”
- “If you don’t know who you are and what your archetype is, then how do you know what messaging to use?”
- “You will lose your jobs to people that know how to use the technology and adapt to it.”
- “I really believe that if you can dream it, you can achieve it and you’ve just got to go for it.”
Action Steps:
- Embrace adaptability in business operations: Staying flexible when circumstances change allows your team to innovate and thrive during uncertainty.
- Ground your brand in authenticity: Building from your true story and values helps create deeper emotional connections with clients and audiences.
- Adopt technology as a growth tool: Learning to use AI and automation effectively keeps your business competitive and future-ready.
- Cultivate resilience through challenges: Viewing setbacks as opportunities to grow builds long-term strength and confidence for both leaders and teams.
- Prioritize relationships and community: Strong personal and professional connections are the foundation for lasting success and meaningful collaboration.
Sponsor: Rise25
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Episode Transcript
Intro: 00:00
All right. Today we’re talking about how to build iconic brands. And you’ll hear a story about how to navigate major technology and life changes. My guest today is Tracey Felicidad Jones. And I’ll tell you more about her in a second.
So stay tuned.
John Corcoran: 00:17
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:34
All right. Welcome, everyone. John Corcoran here, the host of this show. You know, if you’ve listened before, every week we have smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies. And if you check out the archives, we’ve got Netflix, Grubhub, Redfin, gusto, Kinkos, Ypo, AEO, Activision Blizzard, lots of great episodes for you to check out.
And of course, this episode is brought to you by our company, Rise25, where we help businesses to give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you to run your podcast with the easy button for any company to launch and run a podcast, we do three things strategy, accountability, and full execution. We even invented our platform, Podcast Co-Pilot, which all of our clients use. So if you want to learn more about all of us, you can go to rise25.com or email our team at support@rise25.com. All right I’m excited to have today’s guest here today. As I said, Tracey, she’s the Founder and CEO of Tracey Brand Building. It’s a global branding and marketing agency. It’s got operations in South Africa and in the United States.
And she’s going to share her story of how she came over here to the United States from South Africa and also evolving the business in the age of AI, which is affecting every agency out there today. But Tracey is such a pleasure to have you here today. And first, let’s start with your story. So you actually were born in the United States. Your father was a doctor.
And then that brought you to South Africa, where you lived most of your life until not that long ago, three or 4 or 5 years ago or something like that, when you decided that the violence in South Africa was too much and that you had to come to the United States. So first of all, what was it like growing up in South Africa and what was that experience like for you? I guess you’re a bit of an outsider because you were American living in South Africa at the time.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 02:17
Hi, John, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yes, you’re right on the money. I am, you know, was born in New York City and my whole family is from South Africa. So when I was about two we went back to South Africa, grew up there, ended up going to boarding school, and that was in the height of apartheid.
So very, very evident. You know, you could not have basically they called them black and white benches. You know, you weren’t allowed to have if you were of a different color, you weren’t allowed to sit on certain colored benches. It was pretty extreme. And, you know, I was around Mandela was released from prison and then the country just started going downhill after Mandela passed away, unfortunately.
So crime and corruption kind of flooded everything. As a result, uptake of regular municipality offerings just kind of collapsed. We we have what we call load shedding, which is rolling blackouts because of the lack of infrastructure upkeep.
John Corcoran: 03:18
Which for a company like yours, I’m sure is debilitating. If you don’t have power, you can’t operate totally.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 03:24
I mean, we would, we would. So we’re a full service agency. So we did everything from strategy through to TV commercials, and we would have to book. When we had our last TV commercial, I’d have to book a generator because who knows if the if the power went out. We got to think of plan A, B, C because D is probably going to get stolen, hijacked, very real, very real challenges.
Which is why I think South Africans do have a bit of a a grit. And we just make a plan, you know, we just kind of get on with it. And I remember we had a photo shoot one of our clients as a frozen dessert And as the dessert got delivered, the literally the driver was hijacked or carjacked, as you called it in the US. So it was at that time where we just decided it was now like 2019. You know, I went through some some quite intense sessions.
I never was shot in the head. And I also helped someone escape an attempted murder at a wellness retreat in inverted commas. Oh, geez. And that’s when I just realized there’s got to be more to this. This is not.
This is not a life that you can live in. There was also a lot of changes in the government. So something called black economic empowerment. So you would have to sell a majority of your business to be able to do business with large corporations. And I’m like, I’m not I’m not buying into this.
My whole team is diverse. My whole team is a rock star. I just want to work with good people. And luckily I was born in America, so I’m a US citizen. And that’s where we decided, you know, I’ve got a 12 year old boy He’s probably going to have to be entrepreneurial.
John Corcoran: 04:58
He was probably, what, eight or something when you came over here?
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 05:01
Yeah, he was eight. And I’m like, it’s not fair for me to make those decisions for him when I have the opportunity to offer us all a better life.
John Corcoran: 05:09
What was it like for him when you said to him, we’re going to move to the United States?
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 05:14
Initially upset, you know, little kiddos. They’re attached to their friends. Family was still back there. Yeah. But he’s flipping resilient.
I mean, I think I think we underestimate how resilient children are. And we do quite a lot of we did a lot of traveling. So he’s just happy. He just kind of fits in wherever we go. And it’s become part of his life really traveling and adapting.
And in 2019, we did a road trip to see, okay, where are we going to live? And I had mapped out six places that I thought I could live live in based on my youth. When I was 20, I was in the States for.
John Corcoran: 05:50
Tell us the story. You you had been in the States working in a camp. And this is what brought you to Colorado. Tell us the story.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 05:58
Yeah, I’ll try and keep it short and sweet, because some people say it could be a movie. But I actually studied a Bachelor of Science dietetics, and after college, everybody was going to do, you know, to check out other countries. A lot of them were going to the UK. And at that point I was like, I’m going to go check out America because I can, you know. Yeah.
So I got a job at a summer camp coaching tennis in upstate New York. And when I was there, I met all these camp counselors. I’d never experienced a summer camp. It was something completely foreign and different to me. Anyway, I ended up meeting these fabulous Australians, and I ended up buying an old ambulance with one of the guys from the summer camp.
John Corcoran: 06:38
As one does as one does.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 06:40
As one does when you’re 20. Life choices.
John Corcoran: 06:42
Right?
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 06:43
And then you were like, okay, guys, like, what do you want to do? Like, and then before we knew it, there were 15 of us that decided we’re going to just go on an adventure. and one of the one of our other friends bought one of those wagons. You know, those brown wagons. And between the two, the ambulance and that we called our ambulance Big Jud.
We traveled around the US, went to 42 states.
John Corcoran: 07:06
It ended.
John Corcoran: 07:07
Up.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 07:07
Ended up being two and a half years.
John Corcoran: 07:10
Two and a half years with all the people made it the whole time.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 07:13
No. So as people’s visas ran out, we would like drop them off at the airport chairs and we would keep going. So eventually there was four of us left.
John Corcoran: 07:22
How are you funding this thing?
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 07:24
Oh, we would we would stop and we would like wake up and we’re like, okay guys, are we happy here? Yes. Okay. And we would, I would, I would work as a waitress. The guys would do hard labor.
They would do construction.
John Corcoran: 07:34
So we’re.
John Corcoran: 07:35
Like a few weeks.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 07:36
For like a few weeks.
John Corcoran: 07:37
Until we.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 07:37
Got bored. And then we would carry on and.
John Corcoran: 07:40
Wow.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 07:40
We, we could sleep in the ambulance as well. Like, this is how old was I? 20.
John Corcoran: 07:44
Wow.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 07:45
You know, I remember sleeping in the ambulance outside the outside the the white House back then And just just waking up. And then I remember we were in South South Head, Hilton Head, South Carolina, and it was October and started getting cold. And we’re like, okay guys, there’s four of us left now. So what do you want to do? Well, let’s go learn how to ski now.
Dumber and dumber had been released. This is how we make our life choices.
John Corcoran: 08:12
A.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 08:12
Couple of years before.
John Corcoran: 08:14
Yeah.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 08:15
So we were like, where are we going to go? Aspen. So we drove to Aspen from South Carolina and drove in Aspen and ambulances at an angle because it’s just it’s a 1990 Dodge. This is now in the year 1999. And I ended up working at the hospital as a dietician at Aspen Valley Hospital.
I ended up working at the Little Nell Hotel as a concierge. And then I worked on the On the Mountain as a chef. So the guys were cleaning spa’s at that point. So yeah, they then all of their visas ran out And I stayed. And then I ended up going to Vegas, where I became a blackjack dealer for six months.
John Corcoran: 08:57
This is definitely a movie.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 08:59
And then I had a bad car accident and ended up back in South Africa.
John Corcoran: 09:03
In the ambulance.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 09:04
No, I actually I actually just left the ambulance in Aspen. It’s probably at Pitkin Airport somewhere. I hate to say that.
John Corcoran: 09:11
You.
John Corcoran: 09:11
Left it at the airport, like just.
John Corcoran: 09:12
Abandoned.
Tracey Felicidade Jones: 09:13
At the airport. Yeah, I’m.
John Corcoran: 09:14
Probably.
John Corcoran: 09:14