Our Team
Dr. Thedia Samara, Ph.D.
Founder & CEO
Dr. Thedia Samara, Ph.D. is a venture builder, creative entrepreneur, and founding architect of Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC — a woman-of-color-owned firm committed to originating, launching, acquiring, and investing in businesses across the creative industries. At Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC, businesses are our products. Dr. Samara is the founder of every venture the firm builds, owning and operating each one with full strategic and operational accountability.
A multi-disciplinary artist, writer, producer, publisher, and academic, Dr. Samara brings rare dual fluency in both the creative and commercial dimensions of venture building. She holds degrees in Business Management and Organizational Leadership and a Ph.D. in Music with a concentration in Education, graduating magna cum laude. Her Creative CEO™ framework — the operational backbone of Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC — defines how the firm originates and scales ventures that sit at the intersection of creativity and commerce without compromising artistic integrity, faith, or purpose.
Dr. Samara's research affiliation with the Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics and her membership in the Sound Health Network — an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in collaboration with UCSF, NIH, and the Kennedy Center — position her at the frontier of evidence-based creative venture development, giving Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC a competitive edge no other firm in this space can replicate.
Through Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC, Dr. Samara is building a vertically integrated portfolio of creative ventures — spanning artist housing, children's edutainment, faith-based media, purpose-driven publishing, and business education — while simultaneously operating The Creative Compass Mentorship Accelerator and The Creative Ventures Fellowship, a SCVG-funded micro-grant program through which the firm invests directly in the next generation of creative talent. Dr. Samara is not a supporter of the creative economy. She is building it — one venture at a time.
Her work is rooted in a conviction that creativity and purpose can power lasting economic success, and that the creative economy's greatest untapped resource is the brilliance of Black, Native, and first-generation founders who have been historically underserved by traditional venture capital. Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC exists to change that — not through charity or consultation, but through the disciplined, intentional work of building businesses that generate profit, create cultural value, and leave a lasting legacy.
Our Advisors
The firm operates with a lean, intentional structure — supported by a collaborative network of creative professionals, specialists, and strategic partners who contribute expertise across design, marketing, finance, legal,
and creative production.
Every collaborator who works within the Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC ecosystem shares a deep commitment to the firm's core conviction: that creativity and commerce are not opposing forces, but complementary ones — and that the most powerful businesses are built at their intersection.
We are builders.
We are originators.
And we approach every venture we create with the same standard: disciplined strategy, creative integrity, and an uncompromising commitment to long-term impact.
Samara Creative Ventures Group, LLC is supported by a multidisciplinary advisory network spanning legal, financial, strategic, and creative industry expertise, ensuring strong governance, informed decision-making, and scalable growth.