Here We Greaux!
Written by Holly Culpepper
Louisiana Women in Business Magazine • Summer 2021 • Woman of the Season
Meeting Tabitha Starkey is nothing short of inspiring. She is energetic, driven, and possesses an unwavering determination to succeed. She faces adversity head-on and refuses to be deterred. Quitting simply is not in her vocabulary. While industry experts often cite a starting budget of $40,000 and a team of ten to fifteen as prerequisites for launching a successful print magazine, Tabitha took a different path. On July 1, 2020, she co-founded LA Women in Business Magazine alongside her older sister, envisioning a publication filled with substantive content designed to empower female business owners like herself.
“We all face the same issues at different times in our journey, and most of us are without a fellow entrepreneur to talk to about them.”
With that mission at its core, the two got to work. The inaugural issue was published online and in print by October of that same year.
Tabitha also serves as the founder of Cornerstone Marketing Agency of Louisiana, headquartered in Baton Rouge. As a business growth strategist supported by a skilled marketing team, she leads a firm that represents clients from Shreveport to New Orleans, including several high-profile businesses that trust Cornerstone Marketing Agency to expand their digital presence, develop and manage advertising campaigns, and execute broader brand awareness strategies.
“I love helping people and watching their businesses grow.”
Tabitha notes that marketing was not always her passion, but helping people always has been. Her dedication to her clients and community has earned her recognition as a Top Female CEO in Marketing by the Women of Distinction organization, solidifying her reputation as one of Louisiana’s premier marketing professionals.
Tabitha’s entrepreneurial journey has not been without hardship. She launched her first business at age 30, but without sufficient mentorship and guidance, she overspent and was ultimately forced to close. Rather than allow that experience to define her, she allowed it to refine her. Humbled and wiser, she began to pray about her next steps and felt a clear sense of calling toward small business marketing. Her response, in her own words, was characteristically confident: “Dad, I could smash that!”
That confidence was well-founded. With a first-place marketing award at the state level and management experience dating back to high school, Tabitha has spent over two decades setting records and earning recognition in her field. What does not come naturally, she learns, or she hires the best person for the job.
“Always learning is a key component of growth.”
When asked about the other pillars of success, Tabitha’s answers are refreshingly grounded, and not all of them are business-related. Cultivating gratitude, maintaining a generous spirit, treating clients and employees with genuine kindness, and following through on every commitment are, in her view, the foundational principles every business owner should embrace.
Tabitha approaches her clients’ businesses with the same level of care and investment she would apply to her own. She is committed to ensuring that every marketing dollar delivers a measurable return. Beyond her agency work, she provides complementary value through the magazine, offering readers substantive content on business, wellness, personal finance, and mindset. She freely gives her time, spending hours in phone calls and strategy sessions helping entrepreneurs map out their best path forward, and has even hosted free workshops on leveraging social media effectively. Staying current on evolving media trends is both a professional priority and a personal commitment.
Her generosity extends well into the community. Tabitha regularly organizes fundraisers, donates her time, and contributes financially to causes that come to her attention, and many that she actively seeks out. Among her deepest passions is the fight against child trafficking. Her giving is not performative; it is instinctive. She operates from a sincere belief that when her intentions are good, provision will follow, and that belief, she says, has never failed her.
“It is important for business owners to give back.”
When asked what business advice she would offer her readers, Tabitha is direct: always have a plan. A business growth plan. A marketing plan. And a contingency plan, not as a concession to failure, but as a practical response to an unpredictable marketplace. For her clients, she develops phased marketing strategies, with each new quarter representing the next stage of execution. Planning with intention, and persisting when those plans are disrupted, she believes, are the true hallmarks of long-term success.
With Cornerstone Marketing Agency marking four years in April and LA Women in Business Magazine celebrating its one-year anniversary, Tabitha’s vision for both enterprises remains clear. She sees them as naturally complementary: two vehicles united by the same purpose, helping businesses grow across Louisiana.
It is a mission she lives out daily with excellence.
On behalf of this publication, we extend our sincere congratulations to Tabitha Starkey on being named Woman of the Season and, in this writer’s humble opinion, the Woman of the Year.
Originally published in the Summer 2021 issue of Louisiana Women in Business Magazine. Written by Holly Culpepper.