Communicators Of The Year Awards 2021 Winners

Amna Qureshi

Polestar

Amna Qureshi drives toward a bright future

Amna has become a rising star in Polestar for her clear communication and her ability to turn cultural sustainability goals into practical activities. Her positivity and organization gained her a spot on Ragan’s Rising Star list.

As the Internal Communications lead for North America at Polestar, Amna Qureshi is on the front line of electric vehicle company Polestar’s mission to encourage a world-wide shift to sustainable mobility.

“Amna is the heart of Polestar North America,” her colleagues write.

Employee engagement in global and local internal communications channels rose 80% under Amna’s guidance. Before she began working on bringing people together, the team could be “scattered,” a Polestar representative wrote. To address this, Amna refreshed the internal communications channel, kicked off an off-site Employee Week event, launched the Weekly Tech Tip initiative to help people adjust to working digital-first, and encouraged lifestyle initiatives like weekly stretching, cooking activities and bake-offs.

Amna joined the Internal Communications team in April 2021 and has hit the ground running. In particular, she shines when it comes to keeping every employee on the same page with regards to strategy, communication and activities. Her reach extends over CX, Digital and Marketing. Polestar turns to Amna when they need someone to keep employees aligned when it comes to the right mindset, focus, and behaviors. She has also received praise from her team for her endless positivity and optimism.

As an electric vehicle company, Polestar vales people who can look to the future and have a positive attitude about not only the future of the business, but the future of our planet. Amna has streamlined the company’s sustainability goals into practical activities and initiatives such as recycling, food-drives, and clean-up and donation events.

Amna also uplifts the people around her on a day-to-day basis, garnering praise for lifting others up and unlocking their full potential. In general, her tasks include writing engaging news stories, populating information pages, and curating internal campaigns and events for the North American team. She has also supported the Public Relations, Global Communications, and HR teams with various campaigns.

In order to carry all of this out, Amna has remained very organized in a chaotic time for the world. She sets monthly and quarterly goals for reach, engagement and general satisfaction for her stakeholders. She also follows up frequently and encourages cross-collaborative communication, and welcomes feedback from her team and stakeholders.

Ashley Skokan

Hy-Vee, Inc.

Ashley Skokan leads Hy-Vee’s vaccine distribution

Ashley’s work helping Hy-Vee, Inc. pivot to vaccine rollouts made a big difference for the company and the world. Her organized, thorough work and constant communication landed her on Ragan’s Rising Star list.

An employee-owned Midwest-based grocery retailer with more than 285 stores in eight states, Hy-Vee provided another essential service during the pandemic: serving as a a federal retail pharmacy partner for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Letting the public know when and where vaccines were available at Hy-Vee pharmacies was paramount. Ashley’s three-year career at Hy-Vee and her current position as Hy-Vee Communications Manager gave her all she needed to succeed.

During 2021, she was the connective tissue between the organizations and the Centers for Disease Control, participating in calls with the government organization. She lead the development of nearly every piece of information created to promote and communicate about the vaccine and vaccine scheduler website. She also jumped from the big picture to the day-to-day needs of the community, helping individual customers with vaccine appointments from time to time.

Her work during the pandemic included:

Wayfinding and instructional content for Hy-Vee’s COVID-19 website landing page
Instructions for the online vaccination scheduler
Appointment confirmation emails
Customer e-newsletter updates
Social media copy, both informational and promotional
Creation of critical talking points for Hy-Vee Pharmacy leaders. These were also used in press releases issued by the CDC.
Weekly and bi-weekly CDC vaccine clinic report development
Key contact for CDC to ensure they received all Hy-Vee press releases, event information and top headlines in a timely fashion
Written and verbal responses to customer inquiries on all channels
Press releases announcing vaccination clinics and updates in eligibility
Internal updates for 91,000 employees via Retail Zipline, an employee update app Ashley helped roll out.

As a result, the White House also acknowledged Hy-Vee several times with praise for its work in the vaccine rollout.

As well as doing the critical work of getting people vaccinated to try to slow the spread and severity of COVID-19, Ashley’s enthusiasm, empathy and organization helped customers find clarity in a confusing time.

Breanna Ahern

STO Building Group

Breanna Ahern’s podcast builds an audience for her employer and industry

‘Building Conversations’ has grown in just two years to earn more than 14,100 downloads, making Ahern a Rising Star in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

Two years ago, STO Building Group’s Breanna Ahern pitched the idea of launching a podcast that would position the firm as a leader in the trends and challenges facing the company’s industry and clients. Her initial aim was simply to get the podcast off the ground. In the end, Ahern and her team have produced more than 40 episodes of the Building Conversations podcast, resulting in more than 14,100 downloads.

No one in the company—including Ahern herself—had developed a podcast before, so Ahern relied on intensive research, the expertise of her colleagues in technology and communications and her experience as a podcast listener. She outlined topics to focus on, learned how to record and edit and determined what to do with her recordings once they were ready.

Then Ahern created a plan: getting senior leadership on board; creating an editorial plan/calendar; working with tech experts to identify the best recording system; learning how to edit audio; and developing a promotion plan.

The first episode was launched in June 2019. Building Conversations balances the sectors and topics of STO Building Group’s industry and the various business units and regions it operates in. Ahern manages the calendar and works with the team to schedule graphics, website updates and promotions on social media for each episode.

Ahern began recording the podcast at STOBG’s New York headquarters using standard recording equipment, but through trial and error she and the team learned how to improve the sound quality, ultimately finding an online podcast recording system that lets them record guests in any location. When COVID hit, this allowed the team to continue recording the podcast throughout lockdowns, quarantines and social distancing.

In 2021, Ahern launched a special podcast “oral history” series to celebrate STO Building Group’s 50th anniversary. She worked with a committee to develop an outline for the series, recording interviews with more than 30 employees—including two of the company’s founding fathers—and engaging company leadership in reviewing and approving the content.

Ahern joined STO Building Group as an intern; she hit the ground running, tailoring fresh, new ideas to the company’s culture. A podcast wasn’t on anyone’s wish list, but she drove the process entirely and made it a success.

Camonghne Felix

Blue State

Camonghne Felix matches and exceeds Blue State Strategic Communications’ thoughtful, progressive goals

Camonghne Felix brings a poet’s heart and a political communicator’s mind to her work as head of strat comms at the Blue State agency. Her instrumental work in building the team from the ground up earned her a place on Ragan’s Rising Stars list.

Camonghne brings an accomplished career as a poet to her PR work as well. In addition to founding and leading Blue State’s strategic communications practice out of their DC office, she has a sparkling resume. Her debut poetry collection was long listed for the 2020 National Book Awards, Pen America Open Book Award, and Lambda Literary Award. She has worked as the National Director of Surrogate Communications, Black Media, and Strategic Communications for Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 campaign for President, as well as honing her political communication skills as Communications Director for the Amara Enyia mayoral campaign in Chicago.

For Blue State, she has helped the agency partner with over 30 clients and acquire over $3.5M within the first 18 months of work. (Plus, the majority of that took place during the pandemic.) She’s kept the agency on track with its stated goal of living at the intersection of public affairs and public relations. Strat Comms focuses around this intersection, so her combination of political and writing experience was a perfect fit.

She lead the agency in adding video to strategic communications. Her message consistency and knowledge of how movements work from the ground up have lead both the agency and her personal career to success with clients including Google, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Elizabeth Warren. Working with Blue State required someone who could not only make valuable connections with national press, but also understand clients’ relationships with their supporters, peers, funders, elected officials, and others.

Camonghne also practices what she preaches, working with global nonprofits and helping democracy-shaping initiatives in times of crisis. In particular, she focuses on encouraging women of color to thrive. During COVID-19, she helped put pressure on lawmakers to pass adequate and encompassing COVID-19 relief for women, particularly women of color. With nonprofits like the Eleanor Crook Foundation she rebranded and reimagined key messaging and helped secure billions of dollars of new funding to combat global malnutrition.

She lead the Blue State Strategic Communications team to “accomplish more than thought possible,” the team wrote.

Jessica Starman

Elev8 New Media

Jessica Starman’s firm heads for the stars

Elev8 New Media has launched to extraordinary heights in the last five years. That’s thanks in large part to co-founder and CEO Jessica Starman, whose drive and celebrity placements garnered her as one of Ragan and PR Daily’s Rising Star Award honorees.

As Chief Executive Officer of Elev8 New Media, Jessica Starman has seen resounding success in the business she founded. Elev8 New Media started in 2018 as a public relations firm with a focus on media relations and social media management for its client companies. As well as owning the business, she also did the work on the ground level working with clients at the same time. The firm has seen year-over-year growth since its founding.

“Her kindness and generosity in the workplace are unparalleled to what we have experienced at other agencies,” wrote Tiffany Hernandez, senior account executive at Elev8 New Media.

Some of the firm’s more well-known clients include The Alkaline Water Company, Vuzix, Arcimoto, Coya Therapeutics, and Splash Beverage Group.

For The Alkaline Water Company, Jessica and her team were honored to help spearhead the PR efforts for the company when it brought on basketball legend, Shaquille O’Neal. He now serves in the company as an equity partner, a member of the Company’s Board of Advisors, and a marquee brand ambassador for the company’s flagship product, Alkaline88. The Company has now spoken to or is on the list to be interviewed by dozens of media outlets, including Rolling Stone, Business Insider, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and more.

Jessica also makes an effort to make change in the world outside of her entrepreneurial life as well. She enjoys working with Worthy Beyond Purpose whose mission is to bring meditation and mindfulness to children. She also spends some of her time away from the firm volunteering with organizations like Heal The Bay, an environmental cleanup and maintenance effort in her hometown of Los Angeles, CA.

Kalli Abernathy

Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum

Abernathy blows through goals for Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum’s commemoration event

Kallie Abernathy made sure the event surpassed expectations, making her a Rising Star in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

The 80th commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor was expected to coincide with a renewed surge of tourism to Hawaii, giving the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum an opportunity to increase its brand awareness and drive revenue. Kalli Abernathy, director of marketing and public relations, jumped into the effort, setting ambitious goals for the year to attract visitors, increase ticket sales and support the museum’s philanthropic efforts.

As a result, some 130,000 people visited the museum in 2021, exceeding the goal of 128,000. Ticket sales totaled $2,260,000 against a target of $2,240,000, and the successful marketing of fundraisers, the museum’s annual gala, and other campaigns raised $9,800,000 for the year’s philanthropic goal of $3,000,000.

Under the theme, “America’s World War II Battlefield,” Abernathy and her team used the USS Arizona, Blue Angel aircraft and the museum’s Bob Hope exhibit to tell a dynamic story about the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and its impact on innovation in the following decades. She also launched Liberty Luau at Pearl Harbor, a new product designed to extend the museum experience into the evening.

The team designed innovative marketing programs and oversaw branding for more than half a dozen targeted philanthropic campaigns, working with the development team to home in on emotional and moving stories. It also redesigned and rebranded the museum’s blog, The Ready Room, to focus on unique storytelling opportunities, and developed a monthly newsletter, The Briefing. Engagement and readership at both increased 4%.

Abernathy served as lead point of communication for the museum’s annual “For Love of Country Gala,” a virtual celebration starring celebrities such as Linda Hope and HBO’s The Pacific’s Jon Seda. The gala drew nearly 30,0000 viewers and many tributes.

Ultimately Abernathy’s work earned more than 5 million impressions on Fox News, CBS, TMZ, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, NBC and other outlets throughout 2021. The 80th commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor generated dozens of news stories, the highest daily visitation count of the year, a roster of free education programming, and highlighted the opening of the Aviation Learning Center.

Karalyn Hoover

Max Borges Agency

Karalyn Hoover proves herself on a fast track to success

Karalyn Hoover from the Max Borges Agency excels as a go-to media relations specialist for innovative lifestyle brands. Her success lead her to both promotion within the agency and recognition as one of Ragan’s Rising Star honorees.

Karalyn shines as a positive voice and positive influence in the midst of the transition to working from home. Despite these challenges, she has found a lot of success with clients such as Monos. Monos had six media hits in two years when Karalyn started working with them. She increased coverage in one year to 605 total hits, averaging 40 hits per month. Their readership also jumped from 256M to more than to more than 8B total online readership and 250M estimated coverage views. That, in turn, resulted in more than $276,000 in sales from direct media referrals in one year.

Monos then chose to keep doing what worked. They stayed with Karalyn and the Max Borges Agency for an expansion into apparel. Karalyn enabled placements with Fortune, Forbes, Cosmopolitan, People, Hollywood Reporter, NY Mag, Vogue, Business Insider and more, creating significant bottom-line impact for Monos.

Karalyn’s success with this and other projects lead to her promotion from account coordinator to account executive in only six months, one of the fastest promotions between these roles in agency history. She has created a niche for herself as a go-to media relations specialist for innovative lifestyle brands.

She has turned her expertise to pro bono work, as well. For The Nice Plant, she created an affiliate program for their website, a pitch calendar and tip sheet for long and short lead opportunities, media-facing materials promoting the brand, pitches for media opportunities, a new bio/profile for the CEO and a press clippings book.

Last but not least, she also made a splash supporting the business development team and helping bring on new employees in today’s very challenging job market. With coverage in national top media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Business Insider, CNN, Fortune and many more, her media relations role has been a resounding success and is only just beginning.

Katie Casey

Horizon Therapeutics

Katie Casey takes on the responsibility of global rollouts and a growing brand

As associate director, corporate digital communications at Horizon Therapeutics, Katie Casey kept pace masterfully with Horizon’s meteoric growth. Her social media campaigns and mentorship made her a great candidate for Ragan’s Rising Stars Award.

Horizon Therapeutics’ social presence owes it all to Katie Casey. As the large biotech company has grown, she has scaled its digital presence accordingly, reaching new viewers and providing compelling content for those already aware of the growing brand. She’s been a perfect fit for the job because of her experience in healthcare digital communications, a job that requires careful work within complex and challenging regulatory and legal channels.

Katie led over 15 paid social media campaigns across numerous target audiences in the third quarter of 2021 alone. She found great success with these, seeing total impressions rise by 19%, link clicks rise by 66%, and video views rise 5%. She was also instrumental in creating improvement quarter-to-quarter on Horizon’s digital communications platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram). She has more than proven herself capable of strategically handling budgets, creative concepting and evolving with the ever-changing social media landscape required for a growing biotech company.

Katie made a unique mark with a new research and development site she oversaw the creation and implementation of. With Science Forward, she had to manage multiple stakeholders, tight deadlines and complex content. In the end, the site succeeded at producing a product that drives forward Horizon’s commitment to research, development and science.

Katie also took the lead on the development of Horizon’s global branch of websites. So far, she has overseen the launch of global branch sites in Germany, Japan and Brazil. Soon, more will roll out. Horizon trusted Katie in this customer-facing task to ensure content is applicable to a variety of international audiences.

Throughout her career at Horizon, Katie has been praised for her exceptional abilities to motivate others, to serve as a mentor, teacher and communicator, and to help her interns and direct reports grow personally and professionally. Her knowledge and detail-oriented personality are deeply appreciated.

Katie Parr

A Media Relations Natural

Using her brainpower: Katie Parr launches a new paradigm for human-computer interfacing

Parr brought word of Brain Technologies’ newest app Natural to the world, generating wide coverage and thousands of YouTube views. She’s a Rising Star in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Stars Awards.

Brain Technologies, an artificial intelligence company, launched its app Natural in late July 2021. This was China-based Brain Technologies’ first venture in the U.S. market, so it turned to Katie Parr of PR and marketing agency UPRAISE to meet the challenge.

Parr designed a launch strategy that earned media coverage in TechCrunch, Forbes, and Fortune, in regional publications such as the Silicon Valley Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times, and in tech publications such as ZDNet and Intellyx. A video produced for the launch generated 583,000 views on YouTube as well.

Natural is the world’s first consumer generative interface. With it, according to the Brain Technologies website, “You no longer go to apps, apps come to you.” Parr’s launch strategy started with a press release announcing the launch of Natural, its value proposition, funding and key investors. It featured statements demonstrating Natural’s differentiation and superiority to current virtual assistants and testimonials from Natural beta customers.

The media strategy called for Parr to conduct as many pre-briefings under embargo as possible in the weeks prior to the July 28 launch announcement. She focused on the business story behind Brain Technologies and highlighted how it represents a new paradigm for interacting with technology.

Social media was also a key part of the launch strategy. Parr created a string of posts to engage with consumers and encourage downloads and trials. She also organized a series of weekly challenges designed to highlight Natural’s capabilities and superiority over today’s virtual assistants, including booking a flight on a specific day and time, travel class and price range, and ordering food from a favorite restaurant, with specific menu items and the time for delivery.

Parr collaborated with top influencers to attract more followers to Natural’s social channels and used Twitter’s “Top Follower” section to invite people with large followings to follow Natural. A social listening tool allowed the company to identify influencers discussing bringing “humanity” back into technology and then engage with them. Parr relied on LinkedIn’s Follower Analytics to better understand the profiles of people following Brain Technologies and engage with those with large followings.

As a result of Parr’s social media efforts for the launch, Natural has 33,000 followers on Instagram, 8,400 followers on Twitter and 2,600 followers on LinkedIn.

Miranda Creech

Gagen MacDonald

Miranda Creech rose to the occasion during the pandemic

Miranda Creech, senior manager at Gagen MacDonald, took her career in hand over the last five years. Successful campaigns in high-profile situations and record success with internal employee communication makes her a great pick for Ragan’s Rising Star award.

Miranda’s star track record started early. As opportunities arise, Miranda has reached for them all and excelled in her ambition.

She arrived at the public relations industry through work as a project coordinator. In her five years at the company, she has been promoted five times for her talent and willingness to step up. In her first year at Gagen MacDonald, her strategic thinking and flawless execution earned her enough trust to take on a leadership role. She guided 15 consultants — many of whom were her seniors by title — through a six-month campaign promoting and generating excitement for the company’s values. It resulted in never-before-seen employee engagement, with record numbers of employees coming together in town halls and Yammer posts.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, she took charge. She led the company’s engagement team and worked with her clients on a multichannel communication strategy. This, too, increased town hall and Yammer engagement to record-breaking numbers. Click-through rates on the weekly COVID-19 newsletter reached 75% opens and 11% click-throughs. 80% of employees told company pulse surveys that they looked favorably toward these pandemic changes. It turned out to be big job: Miranda took the lead on analyzing employee sentiment, coaching and preparing senior leaders and ensuring employees around the globe felt safe and heard. She also created the company’s COVID-19 microsite, two new all-employee newsletters, numerous social campaigns, and a video series for leader visibility.

Throughout her short career, Miranda has already lead multi-million dollar engagements with Fortune 15 companies.

When her clients are unavailable, she facilitates the company’s Steering Committee meetings — usually a role reserved for VPs, global leaders or top directors. She has also expanded her responsibilities to handling communications for C-level executives beyond her existing duties with the company’s head of internal communications. Congratulations to Miranda on this stellar start to her career.

Nate Gorsline

Strategus

Nate Gorsline introduced clients to unique types of advertising campaigns

After only a year working for Strategus as head of the business development representatives, Nate has made a strong name for himself. Taking initiative and single-handedly finding solutions landed him on Ragan’s Rising Stars list.

As the “gatekeeper” for castle Strategus, Nate is in charge of the entire client-facing communication for new prospects. Although he has only been working there since early 2021, he has already made a major impact and shown his value to the organization and its clients.

In particular, he made a major difference in changing how to communicate between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) prospects, as well as with the entire sales team at Strategus. He also single-handedly solved conveying issues within Strategus by implementing new strategies in the organization’s yhtiubvn drip campaigns and email cadences. In addition, he increased email opening rates and Click-Through Rate (CTR), which led to a growth in discovery calls with prospects and inevitably additional sales for the company.

Strategus has been known for Over-the-top (OTT) and Connected TV (CTV) advertising campaigns, where companies can target extremely specific audiences through Connect TV instead of just linear ones. Nate arrived with a new vision about communicating this marketing strategy to clients who had not heard of it before as well as to help the company meet its financial goals. To do so, he explained the benefits of OTT/CTV to hundreds of potential customers.

Transforming his prospecting approach involved a lot of trial and error. In the end, he found a working method with Salesloft and ZoomInfo. He also originated new verticals in the tourism and motorbike sectors, which seemed to have potential with Strategus’ offerings.

As a result, the Strategus sales team added 88 new meetings, increased its conversion rate by 4%. Nate developed the business in multiple new verticals, and led his department with new communication methods.

Nour Salmeen

Ascension

From intranets to podcasts, Nour Salmeen helps Ascension connect to a wider audience

She helped develop and roll out an intranet for 150,000 employees; the podcast she works on reaches more than 26,000 people. She’s a Rising Star in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

Nour Salmeen joined Ascension in 2017 as a member of the digital and social team, later advancing to roles with the health care organization’s marketing and communications team. That led to her becoming technology partner liaison for the development and rollout of the Good Day Ascension intranet in 2020.

Supporting Ascension’s 142 hospitals and more than 40 senior living facilities across 19 states and the District of Columbia, along with more than 150,000 associates and 40,000 aligned providers, the intranet offers associates access to news, events, tools and resources, along with opportunities to stay connected with colleagues across the system.

Salmeen proved instrumental to the rollout by bringing her project management skills and attention to detail to the effort, along with an understanding of how to organize and produce content that is relevant and engaging to associates.

She was also a key member of the team behind the development of the Good Day Ascension Podcast, launched early in the COVID-19 pandemic to offer in-depth conversations with Ascension caregivers, associates and leaders, sharer professional insights and offer personal stories. Since April 2020, Salmeen has helped bring more than 29 episodes of the podcast to internal and external audiences.

To date, the podcast has generated more than 8,300 total unique downloads across streaming services and mobile browsers, with each podcast reaching up to 26,400 listeners. Thanks to her expertise in social media and digital marketing, social posts promoting episodes have reached more than 1 million people, with more than 3,000 engagements and an estimated 5,000 clicks.

Building on the podcast’s success, the team launched the Good Day Ascension Newscast in 2021, featuring short, uplifting and celebratory stories from across the system. Salmeen serves as project manager for the newscast, helping with development, production and distribution. Since January 2021, the team’s four episodes have been popular with caregivers and associates.

Olivia Coffey

Siemens Mobility

Olivia Coffey excels in pandemic, DEI communications

Siemens Mobility appreciates Olivia Coffey for her willingness to rise to the occasion and handle pandemic messaging. Her accomplishments landed her on Ragan’s Rising Star list.

Ever since she started as an intern with Siemens Mobility, Olivia has been on an upward trajectory. With the ability to adapt to new challenges (in particular in the pandemic) and to take on more responsibility, she’s working from a great foundation. When the agency’s Head of Internal Communications went on maternity leave, Olivia jumped feet-first into covering for her role. She gained valuable experience there, as well as garnering praise from the Head of Human Resource, Head of Compliance and CEO for her work as a go-to on all internal communications, including the vaccine mandate. In doing so, she rose to the occasion managing countless townhalls and leadership webcasts, running the agency’s Mobility North America awards ceremony and employee and manager newsletters.

One of her first jobs as an intern was to manage regular notifications about COVID cases, keeping employees up to date and sharing EH&S updates with more than 30 locations. As guidance changed, the messaging did too, but throughout, Olivia kept up with the organization’s “Wearing is Caring” mask campaign.

Olivia was also a key part of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. As part of her work there, she came up with new ways to educate and engage employees about ways to participate in DEI activities. She organized a Veteran’s Day Virtual 5K, a Virtual Museum Visit for World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, and a guest speaker for Black History Month.

All of that hard work paid off with a job in August 2021 as an Internal Communications Coordinator. With Siemens Mobility she has gained valuable experience and proven herself more than capable of working well with a large team. In particular, she’s garnered praise for her skill at engaging employees through multiple different tactics at once. With such a strong start, we’re confident she has a bright future.

Robert Brooks

Robert Brooks helps tell stories that make big changes

At The Herald Group, Robert Brooks meets people where they are. His effective storytelling lead to several success stories and to Ragan’s Rising Star list.

Robert Brooks is a master at telling the right story — the story that changes hearts and minds. Longtime The Herald Group client The Beer Institute worked with him on a multi-state grassroots campaign in opposition to legislation that would raise taxes on the beer industry in response to COVID-19 budget shortfalls. Robert’s straightforward, simplified messaging connected the campaign directly to its core audiences. It encouraged consumers in the state to contact legislators and voice their opposition to the opposed increases. The resulting engagement was remarkably high, with the 4,080 advocates who joined the campaign contacting their officials over 21,000 times and sharing the message with their followers across social media 4,000 times.

The Beer Institute also worked with Robert around a tax credit to some bars, taverns, and restaurants severely and negatively impacted by COVID-19. Along with the American Beverage Licensees, Robert worked to raise awareness. He went directly to a restaurant owner in Wisconsin to shape a story about how the restaurant had been negatively impacted by the pandemic and how the legislation would help get him back on his feet. The story reached DC reporters, including coverage in Politico.

That’s not the only one of his projects that made a big impact this year. Another client, a wildlife and nature conservation and advocacy organization, wanted to push for generating earned media hits across several states to move the needle on a congressional bill that would both address funding issues for land and water conservation and overhaul the budgeting for national park maintenance initiatives. The challenge? The issue was both obscure to the public and technically complicated.

To address it, Robert reached out to authoritative surrogates in each state and built trusting relationships with them. From there, he could guide them in the writing and publication of letters-to-the-editor speaking in support of the legislation in the local newspaper. Robert’s stories have wide reach and are proven to make change.

Samantha Lish

M Booth Health

Samantha Lish builds campaigns for healthcare organizations with empathy

Director at M Booth Health Samantha Lish has the combination of tact and kindness she needs to thrive in helping to develop and manage healthcare campaigns. She’s gained praise from clients and coworkers alike, leading to her place on Ragan’s Rising Star list.

Samantha is especially suited for her work in the healthcare field because of her deep empathy. She is known for having a “sixth sense” about what content will work best for physicians and patients. That sixth sense (and hard work) brought her a lot of professional success in the last year.

In her work in the oncology arena, she writes with a tactful, hopeful tone, reflecting the lived experiences of people living with cancer. In the area of women’s health, she also brings a keen sensitivity and ear for how women want to be heard around their health concerns.

She has also seen great success leading social media for Epilepsy Advocate, UCB’s patient support initiative. During her tenure managing social strategy and content for Epilepsy Awareness Month in November, page reach rose 220.4% and engagement rose 291%.

“Since becoming a partner of our team, Samantha has been dedicated to exceeding expectations while committed to deadlines,” said Dakar De La Cruz, former Marketing Lead, Digital Experience, UCB.

She also brought that same level of empathy, care and professionalism to work with the International AIDS Society conferences. For the HIV Research for Prevention and COVID-19 Prevention Conference, she coordinated a widely covered media roundtable with Dr. Tony Fauci; Dr. Adeeba Kamarulzaman, IAS president from Malaysia; and Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker, a vaccine expert from South Africa. She also managed social and earned media for the society. At the HIV conference in July, she created daily research and media recaps. In addition, she brought her experience in HIV and in medical communication to the scientific abstracts submitted for presentation. It was her responsibility to choose the most newsworthy HIV treatment studies.

Samantha Rotbart

RE/MAX, LLC

Samantha Rotbart targets visibility and coverage for RE/MAX agents and executives

She writes articles, oversees a YouTube broadcast with RE/MAX’s president and preps execs for media encounters—making her a Rising Star in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

After joining RE/MAX in 2019, Samantha Rotbart rose quickly from communications manager to director of communications for the real estate company, which has a presence in more than 110 countries and territories. Under her leadership, the RE/MAX PR team has increased its share of voice by 8% year over year, reaching 25% among real estate brands in the media.

Rotbart accomplished this by increasing C-suite visibility, improving pitching to national publications and expanding the quality and quantity of press releases for RE/MAX and RE/MAX Holdings. Using tactics that included regular media tours and weekly touchpoints with reporters using her team’s Story Starters email, she and her team secured live, on-air interviews for executives on CNBC as well as coverage in Forbes, NBC News Online, U.S. News & World Report and more.

During a tumultuous year, Rotbart also onboarded new team members after the acquisition of the company’s largest sub-master franchisor, with the company experiencing little to no interruption in expected media coverage—a seamless transition highlighting her ability to multitask, carry projects across the finish line and create and sustain an inclusive environment.

To boost local coverage, Rotbart and her team write and provide monthly themed articles and media pitches for agents to download and send to local media, positioning themselves as community experts on housing. She also regularly writes and contributes original articles to news.remax.com, the brand’s storytelling platform.

In addition, her bylined articles for the Forbes Real Estate Council and commentary for publications like Money Magazine, Real Simple and USA Today allow Rotbart to elevate the brand’s franchisees and real estate agents and keep the brand prominent in ongoing national conversations about real estate.

Rotbart also helps oversee “Keepin’ It Real with Nick Bailey,” a live YouTube show covering the latest topics in real estate, hosted by the president of RE/MAX. Episodes receive thousands of views each month, with Rotbart contributing to topic selection, guest procurement and show prep.

On top of all that, Rotbart supervises all coverage pertaining to quarterly earnings reports and calls, and the extensive media prep work ahead of every executive interview, appearance and recording.

Because of her efforts, RE/MAX received 200+ media mentions following the brand’s annual international convention, an increase of 30% year over year. Additionally, nine media members accepted invitations to the event. And, following a franchisee event in August, RE/MAX reached 100+ reporters and saw 220 pickups from two press releases, reaching a potential audience of 291 million.

Sarah Bouzine

EvolveMKD

Sarah Bouzine juggles multiple roles in taking care of her agency’s clients

Bouzine helps develop websites, run social channels and onboard new team members, earning a Rising Star nod in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

In just two years at PR and digital communications agency EvolveMKD, Sarah Bouzine has risen to the post of senior account executive, working across client accounts as a combination day-to-day contact, project manager, strategist and social media expert.

One of Bouzine’s notable roles was working on Allergan Aesthetics’ Spark, an unbranded website and resource for people interested in entering medical aesthetics. Bouzine helped develop the foundations of the website and the strategy behind it—a challenge after her manager and the previous lead on the account left the agency.

Bouzine stepped into the job of managing the EvolveMKD team on the account, onboarding new team members and running point on Spark while also becoming the clients’ vendors’ point of contact and keeping content aligned on goals. She ran audience insight across all social channels for the brand, as well as handling community management for all social channels, and provided strategic consulting to the client on brands and identifying health care practitioners to partner with for content.

Bouzine’s efforts for the Spark website development and its social elements contributed to more than 10,000 users registering on the site since its inception in late 2020.

For new client NeuroStar, Bouzine took on the digital lead role despite not being the highest in seniority on the account. On NeuroStar’s LinkedIn channel, Bouzine’s efforts achieved a 6.02% engagement rate. Not only is this 116% above the outlined brand goal, but it is also 3.2 points above LinkedIn’s average benchmark of 2%.

Bouzine has also served as a mentor, assisting in the growth and development of the agency’s entry-level staff. With a new account coordinator on the digital team—her first direct report—Bouzine has worked to provide training in everything a budding PR professional needs to know, sharing her expertise in building client relationships, creating social calendars and conducting audits. Her first direct report has already promoted and applauded for their quick growth.

Anthony DeVergillo

Amicus Therapeutics

Anthony DeVergillo created an employee resource group to help his colleagues at Amicus Therapeutics succeed

For his ability to support others, DeVergillo was named an Internal Communicator of the Year in Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year Awards.

“Despite my disability, my abilities have no bounds” is a motto that Anthony DeVergillo lives by. A social being, DeVergillo uses the art of communication to elevate and support others with disabilities or rare diseases.

As Head of Digital Employee Communications, Amicus Therapeutics, DeVergillo established Disability & Rare Advancement in the Workplace (DRAW)—an employee resource group.

Founded in July, DRAW helps employees with rare diseases or disabilities succeed at Amicus Therapeutics—a global, patient-dedicated biotech company that develops medicines for those with rare metabolic diseases. The group aims to boost awareness and ensure that every employee has a path to the top.

DeVergillo teamed up with his executive sponsor to conceptualize, co-found, and launch DRAW at a companywide Town Hall. Interested individuals were welcome to join. Twenty-five members were quick to sign on.

One of DRAW’s missions is to provide a safe space to share. At the group’s inaugural meeting, the executive sponsor stepped up to reveal that he also lives with a rare disease. This marked the first time he opened to his colleagues about his disease. Incidences such as this convey just how essential DRAW is.

The group’s regular membership meetings offer people an opportunity to discuss work-related issues and propose ideas for company-wide initiatives. It also creates an educational newsletter series.

DRAW has already made significant strides. It teamed up with Amicus’ Mental Health First Aiders program to ensure inclusivity. DeVergillo also worked with Human Resources to make sure that his peers have an equal and fair opportunity in the recruitment process. Once hired, he pledged proper training, technology, and resources for all.

Within six months, DRAW already met all its short-term goals. DeVergillo plans to harness this momentum and make DRAW a cornerstone of decision-making at Amicus.

Chris Berger

Atrium Health

Atrium Health

Chris Berger helped Atrium Health evolve from a regional hospital system to an academic powerhouse

For his ability to cast the health system’s leaders into the national and political spotlight, Berger was named a winner in the PR Professional of the Year Nonprofit category of Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year Awards.

When Chris Berger, vice president, enterprise communications, revamped the nonprofit health system’s communications strategy, he used compelling storytelling to connect the hearts and minds of Atrium Health’s 70,000-plus teammates.

Skilled at building and leading others to manage change and critical issues, Berger helped guide the Charlotte, NC-based health system through the Covid-19 crisis. The work he and his team have done has helped save lives.

When the pandemic arrived, Berger strived to achieve Atrium Health’s mission of health, hope and healing for all. In addition to spearheading internal communications, his team collaborated with local officials and the Governor’s office on masking, testing, and vaccine initiatives.

Thanks to his work, Atrium Health has become a trusted source for pandemic-related news. Its experts have made more than 30 news appearances and he’s brought Atrium Health’s President and CEO into the spotlight. Beyond testifying before Congress, Gene Woods introduced the creation of the Million Mask Initiative and hosted the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to demonstrate how Atrium eliminated testing disparities in underserved communities.

Berger has demonstrated excellence by:

Obtaining “most influential in healthcare” status for executives and clinical leaders
Creating a public-private partnership to host mass vaccinations, which led to a “how-to” playbook shared with The White House and governors nationwide
Unveiling a newly created COVID-19 virtual hospital-at-home program
Helping eliminate testing disparities by publicizing mobile testing units

Thanks to Berger’s efforts, Charlotte’s primary media outlets have published/aired more than 2,700 stories since January. To date, the health system has garnered more than 15,000 mentions with a potential reach of 9.1 billion. Its award-winning brand journalism content has lured nearly 1.2 million unique pageviews, 1.6 million social media engagements, and more than 250 million social media impressions.

Chris Zegal

Walker & Dunlop

Walker & Dunlop’s Zegal fuels company growth via marketing and comms

With a nod to his strategic direction and comms and marketing background, Walker & Dunlop’s Chris Zegal has been a catalyst of change and growth at the company since joining in 2017. That’s why he’s been named Corporate Communications Professional of the Year in Ragan’s Communicator’s of the Year Awards.

Chris Zegal is a can-do professional with an all-in attitude. In his role as senior vice president of communications and corporate marketing at real estate company Walker & Dunlop, Zegal oversees the marketing department as well as all internal and external communications marketing strategies for the Walker & Dunlop brand and its various entities. Since joining the company in 2017, Zegal has had the opportunity to drive productivity, reliability and client satisfaction. Alas, Walker & Dunlop has grown to become the No. 1 apartment building capital provider and the No. 4 lender overall in commercial real estate, thanks in part to Zegal’s tactics and strategies.

Under guidance from the company’s CMO Susan Weber, Zegal redefined its marketing operations, spearheading the creation of its modern mar-tech stack for account-based marketing (ABM), launching programs that engaged 75%+ of target accounts. His work has been crucial to the marketing of corporate acquisitions, integrations and rebranding, including Walker & Dunlop’s acquisitions of Zelman & Associates and Alliant Capital; the launch of Apprise, a CRE appraisal startup; and the relaunch of the company’s small balance lending group. He also was instrumental in helping to integrate and rebrand JCR Capital to Walker & Dunlop Investment Partners and developed the marketing program for a new Build-for-Rent practice group.

To achieve such success, Zegal drives cross-channel content marketing for public relations, website, social media, e-mail marketing, events and sales enablement. The tactics have yielded an uptick year-over-year, growing the company’s PR coverage by 48% and social media following by 45%. Further, under his leadership, the marketing team has quadrupled in size over the past three years and quintupled its media budget to build extensive national marketing campaigns to fuel growth. Some of the other executed initiatives Zegal has proffered:

Playing a key role in conceptualizing and communicating a new internal culture — The Walker Way
Publicizing the launch of CREUnited — the first-ever industry-wide DE&I initiative in CRE
Launch of the Walker Webcast series in March 2020, an ongoing weekly webinar in which CEO Willy Walker covers wide-ranging topics in insightful conversations among industry experts and its accompanying podcast named Driven by Insight. The Walker Webcast series has achieved 2.89 million+ total views, 2.59 million+ YouTube replays, 218,300+ active subscribers, and 79 webcast episodes as of December 2021. The Driven by Insight podcast has secured 120,900+ downloads.

Zegal and his team have clearly made an impact on the bottom line with 69% ($27.82B of the $41.1B) of total 2020 transaction volume and 64% ($7.525B of the $11.78B) of 2020 new loan transaction volume coming from companies that attended the webcast. Clearly, Zegal is pushing the envelope.

Curtis Sparrer

Bospar

Curtis Sparrer combines representation and business success

As principal at Bospar, Curtis Sparrer has helped transform the agency as it grows. His award-winning career and Bospar’s exponential growth are proof of his place on Ragan’s Communicators of the Year award slate as a PR Team Leader.

As part of the goal to make Bospar “the most meaningful PR agency in the world,” Curtis has made big strides. Under his direction, Bospar won 72 accounts and took companies dLocal and Sema4 public. Revenue climbed from $6,343,136 to $10,034,487 for the 12-month period, a growth rate of 63%. In June, Bospar broke through with $1 million in client fees, a number predicted to only rise going forward. Bospar also hired more people, more than doubling the headcount staff from 32 to 66 people.

As the agency has grown, Curtis has been instrumental in enabling that growth to proceed in an organized and efficient fashion that provides a springboard for the next step. Curtis recruited Eric Chemi, a CNBC on-air reporter, to be Bospar’s SVP of the broadcast strategies department. Curtis also named Sana Javaid as Bospar’s first Head of DEI and expanded the agency into two distinct sectors, one for enterprise and developer technology and the other for consumer-facing tech.

Within the industry, Curtis serves as a board member of PRSA Silicon Valley. Under his care, Bospar was named Best Corporate Branding from PRWeek, Innovator of the Year by PRovoke, and one of the Best Agencies of the Year by Forbes.

Curtis was also instrumental in Bospar’s major shift in the amenities it offers workers this year, offering to cover up to $10,000 in relocation expenses for Texas staff to move to a state with more autonomy over their reproductive health. Bospar was “one of the few to speak out against the law” among Texas businesses, reported the Dallas Morning News. This decision then influenced Salesforce to make the same offer to their employees.

Curtis also partnered with PRSA Silicon Valley to create a feature about the top 30 LGBTQIA people in PR for PRWeek. Curtis himself was included in the coverage and appeared on a live webcast panel along with with the White House’s Karine Jean-Pierre, Lisa Manley of Mars, Ben Boyd of Lowe’s, and Precious Brady-Davis of the Sierra Club. Despite seeing backlash for public LGBTQIA support, he continues to find business success and stand up for his communities.

Dallas Lawrence

Samba

Dallas Lawrence guided his team in creating and executing several prominent entertainment and technology campaigns

For his ability to transform these businesses, Lawrence was named an honoree in the PR Professional of the Year—Corporate category in Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year awards.

During a time of growth and change, Dallas Lawrence led communications for the Roku Platform Business. Roku, which pioneered streaming to the TV, connects users to the content they love, enables content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provides advertisers with capabilities to engage.

Lawrence led several campaigns, including Quibi—the short-form streaming platform that generated content for viewing on mobile devices; This Old House, the Advanced Advertising Business from Nielsen, and the branded content team from Funny or Die, which led to the launch of Roku’s Brand Studio.

In the spring, Quibi was rebranded as Roku Originals. With the help of his team, Lawrence secured more than 1,500 stories and launched more than 50 individual titles that repositioned the original programming. Adweek awarded it the best revival of the year. He also developed a strategic framework to guide the business’ PR efforts to elevate awareness for The Roku Channel.

At a time when the brand fell behind its competitors, he garnered the #1 share of voice amongst all AVOD competitors for The Roku Channel. In Q3, it captured 50% of all media coverage. Viewership grew five times faster than on the overall Roku platform.

Lawrence also helped shape Roku’s advertising narrative to reach and engage brand marketers and accelerate the shift to TV streaming advertising. Media coverage eclipsed that of all competitors for three consecutive quarters.

Roku’s Upfront PR campaign garnered nearly 200 pieces of coverage. Beyond highlighting the differentiated value of Roku advertising, it signaled a major shift of advertising dollars from linear to streaming as 42% of all advertisers who committed during the Upfronts were new commitments. Today, 90% of the top 200 advertisers work with Roku and Roku works with all seven major agency holding companies.

Lawrence also serves as the senior communications strategist for all distribution agreements and disputes.

Elle Arlook

APCO Worldwide

Since establishing APCO Worldwide’s North America Equity & Justice practice in March, Elle Arlook has grown the practice by more than $3M

For her ability to drive additional revenue with existing clients, Arlook was named a winner in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Communicator of the Year in Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year awards.

What do The George Floyd Memorial Foundation; CarMax, and IKEA have in common with Fortune 10, 50, and 100 consumer companies and universities? They’re all clients of APCO Worldwide—a global advisory and advocacy communications consultancy that helps public and private sector organizations be catalysts for progress.

As the North America Equity & Justice Practice Lead, Elle Arlook guides clients through their efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). She used her leadership role on APCO’s Accelerate What’s Right—an effort to advance equity and justice within and beyond APCO. Her work has contributed to investments in community organizations; helped companies define opportunities for impact and better align their programming; and elevated the capabilities and competencies of communications and DE&I teams.

Arlook led the development of Inclusivity Accord—a signed document between employees and the company. Beyond setting expectations, it supports a broader understanding of what it means to embed inclusivity in an agency.

She’s often selected to work for high-visibility clients. Her role involves demonstrating how they can show up during pivotal moments in current events.

Accomplishments include:

Leading the University of North Carolina through research to build a strategy to advance DE&I across the 17-university state-wide system
Providing crisis communications planning and support to a health-related brand prior to a product launch that targeted Black and brown consumers
Supporting clients facing public backlash about investments in DE&I
Creating in-depth issue briefings and agency-wide guidance for clients on major social justice and racial equity points, including the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial and the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd
Supporting global clients headquartered outside of the U.S. to better understand and adapt DE&I strategies for a U.S. audience

Gary Hahn

National Comedy Center

Gary Hahn has played a key role in building the National Comedy Center and Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum brand and generating its publicity

Despite COVID concerns, Hahn has restored museum attendance to 85% of pre-pandemic levels. For his accomplishments, he was named an honoree in the Professional of the Year—Nonprofit category of Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year awards.

With a limited budget and team, Gary Hahn, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, has guided the National Comedy Center and Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum through a challenging era. The Jamestown, NY, non-profit, which is in Lucille Ball’s hometown, is recognized within the comedy community as the home for the celebration of comedy as an art form.

The museum, which opened its doors in 2018, was named one of the “World’s Greatest Places”—one of only “100 new and newly noteworthy destinations to experience right now” by TIME.

Hahn’s successes include:

Leading the museum’s transformation from an interactive destination into a safe, touch-free visitor experience
Driving revenue by bringing motor coach tour groups back after a 15-month pause
Conceiving, branding, and launching a free, seven-week, themed outdoor event series, “National Comedy Center Riverside Saturdays” to serve as a summer press event, in lieu of its annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, which was postponed due the pandemic
Leveraging the 70th anniversary of the premiere of I Love Lucy via regional press throughout Western and Central New York
Announcing that original Muppet stand-up comedian Fozzie Bear was on exhibit—a strategy that drove attendance
Winning a Telly Award for producing an original online video series
Securing coverage on The TODAY Show; CBS Saturday Morning; CBS Sunday Morning; and The New York Times, which featured a story about the National Comedy Center’s acquisition of comedian Carl Reiner’s archives
Driving retail sales to new levels at the National Comedy Center’s Comedy Shop and the Lucy Desi Museum Shop

Gene Ford

Ascension

Gene Ford expands health system’s reach with an eye to the future

As Ascension Senior Director of Public Relations, Marketing and Communications, Gene Ford manages communication across 142 hospitals and more than 40 senior living facilities. His optimism in day-to-day tasks and efforts toward long-term social change make him one of Ragan’s Communicators of the Year as a PR Team Leader.

Leading during the pandemic presents a double challenge. Gene started in his role in 2020 and thrived despite the obstacles, particularly those facing a health system. During the pandemic, that meant hurdling over a barrier of trust between consumers and vaccines and other COVID-19 precautions. To do so, Gene led the development of a a national, integrated PR and media relations communications strategy to support the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines across the Ascension system. It focused on reassuring patients that it was still safe to seek care, and included taking into account the ways virtual care could compound or improve the challenges faced by rural populations and people of color when it came to seeking and interacting with large health systems.

Gene takes the reins on the organization’s national PR initiatives, including media relations and thought leadership. He oversees a team of eight people and their ministry market teams across Ascension’s more than 2,600 sites of care.

He was a critical part of ABIDE (Appreciation, Belongingness, Inclusivity, Diversity and Equality), a framework rolled out throughout the Ascension organization after the tragic death of George Floyd. As key leader for the framework, Gene created communications and resources for associates across the health system, with a mindset to them being forward-looking for sustainable, lasting change.

With that team, Gene secured over 8,092 media placements and 670M media impressions, creating $341 million in publicity value. His teammates value him for his exceptional results in his work, but also for humor and joy that make the people around him enjoy and find fulfillment in their everyday tasks.

Rachel Gogal

Atrium Health

Rachel Gogal’s words resonate through Congress and the hospital industry

Director, Executive Communications, Atrium Health is responsible for supporting others, but doesn’t get much time in the spotlight herself. We are honored to present her first professional accolade, Ragan’s Speechwriter of the Year award in its Communicators of the Year & Rising Star Awards.

In Rachel’s role in the development and execution of external, internal and strategic communications on behalf of Atrium Health’s President & CEO, she has to wear a lot of hats. Although she arrived at Atrium Health with no healthcare PR experience, she quickly found her feet. She supported CEO Eugene “Gene” A. Woods as he was called upon to weigh in on both the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial injustice revolution.

Gene’s internal communications go to over 70,000 teammates serving patients at 40 hospitals and more than 1,400 other care locations across five states.

This past year, Rachel’s job included drafting and developing speeches, scripts, remarks and talking points on behalf of Gene for over 85 internal and external events involving national audiences from the U.S. Congress, to the American Hospital Association and the Wall Street Journal. She also produced over 30 enterprise-wide teammate and board memos, nearly 60 personal correspondences (such as letters, emails and notes) and over 15 governing board deck presentations. Although speechwriting is often a job with little to no recognition, she continued to work tirelessly to promote Atrium Health’s and Gene’s mission to “to improve health, elevate hope and advance healing – FOR ALL.”

To do so, she brought her experience from working on the executive communications team for two university chancellors and a five-year career in various communications roles.

Rachel has also helped launch several large enterprise-wide campaigns, including the announcement of the new Wake Forest School of Medicine – Charlotte. Likewise, she helped launch campaigns around Atrium Health’s strategic combination with Floyd Health in Georgia and the rollout of their new Culture Commitments. And at 28, she’s become the youngest member of Atrium Health’s Enterprise Communications leadership team. Along with her own speechwriting, she also manages a “small but mighty” team of two.

Outside of work, Rachel coaches a soccer team for 5 and 6-year olds. Her upbeat attitude translates to a sense of fun outside of work. Meanwhile, coworkers praise her “innate talents, selfless dedication and positive attitude.”

Jeffrey Whitford

MilliporeSigma

Jeffrey Whitford has shaped a more sustainable future for MilliporeSigma and its customers

Whitford was instrumental in bringing nearly 2,000 greener products and services to market. For his accomplishments, he was named a CSR/ESG Professional of the Year in Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicator of the Year Awards.

Our future depends on the sustainability efforts of today’s leaders. As head of sustainability and social business innovation at MilliporeSigma—the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany—Whitford strived to provide customers with the tools and data necessary to make more sustainable choices.

Unlike most companies, which focus on in-house efforts, Whitford reduced MilliporeSigma’s ecological impact through its products while simultaneously driving business.

He achieved that by leading efforts to expand the first-in-class USDA Certified bio-preferred solvents portfolio, which includes renewable resources. MilliporeSigma also launched Cyrene™, which eliminates petroleum-based sources as a feedstock. This bio-based solvent has a carbon footprint nearly five times lower than materials it can replace.

Through the SMASH Packaging Plan, MilliporeSigma established a new standard to use less packaging while meeting performance requirements and safety regulations. In 2021, the plan reduced more than 250 metric tons of packaging waste through 15 product and distribution improvement projects to existing packaging. This represents an 8% increase from 2019. Via its industry first Biopharma Recycling Program, MilliporeSigma has recycled 7,000 tons of single-use plastics since 2015.

To demonstrate that MilliporeSigma’s wood and fiber-based packaging doesn’t contribute to deforestation, Whitford, with the support of his team, initiated a zero-deforestation plan. In 2021, 71% of the company’s fiber-based packaging materials were sourced directly aligned with MilliporeSigma’s zero-deforestation standards. Additionally, through the company’s sustainable forestry certification, it reduced 800 metric tons of corrugated and paperboard materials. He also helped facilitate a renewable energy contract that will cover 100% of the company’s U.S. electricity consumption.

Giving back is part of Whitford’s strategy. In addition to overseeing SPARK™—a program that unites global employees through volunteering, he has helped bring hands-on science lessons to students via the company’s Curiosity Cube®—a mobile science lab that will engage young minds at schools and public spaces at more than 200 events in Europe and North America this year, reaching nearly 50,000 students.

Other big wins include making significant strides in sustainable operations, including, sourcing 78% of purchased electricity from renewable energies, achieving a 13% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions; recycling 26,173 tons of waste for a 49% recycle rate; and reusing or recycling 583,060 cubic meters of water, a 12% increase from last year.

Jessica Taylor

Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard’s Taylor created a war room and a crisis playbook

When Activision Blizzard was hit with a major lawsuit, Jessica Taylor, vice president of corporate communications, put on her game face and led the charge in the crisis response. For her tenacity and vision in guiding the company through the challenge, she’s been named Crisis Communicator of the Year in Ragan’s Communicator’s of the Year awards.

Every company is fair game when it comes to a crisis, but in this instance, it was a game company, and the allegations made it the most important crisis the company has faced in its 30-year history. In July 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit alleging that videogame giant Activision Blizzard ignored numerous complaints by female employees of harassment and discrimination. That’s where Jessica Taylor steps in.

To lead the external crisis response, Taylor (who joined the company in 2020) hired media relations professionals to gain a variety of perspectives with strong media relationships. To ensure consistent, global messaging alignment and a central repository for communication plans and resources, she created a crisis playbook. Additionally, Taylor hired other external partners to fill in the gaps and assigned clear roles and responsibilities to team members.

Taylor used quarterly earnings calls to familiarize the team with working in a virtual war room — a Zoom room with real-time collaboration tools — bringing the communications team together with other departments including legal, HR and investor relations. Because of her quick response, the team was well-prepared for the crisis.

Inside the war room, Taylor’s team conducted 24/7 global media monitoring, message development and rapid response. Then, they would deliver media reports to the executive leadership team three times daily, including insights and analysis of story development across themes and outlets. The insights allowed the leadership team to quickly anticipate story development and to align around Taylor’s crisis response recommendations.

Her counsel has been described as “diplomatic,” as she managed a variety of visions for how to respond to the lawsuit. Driven by data and a focus on consistency helped to create a more disciplined approach to messaging.

Due to Taylor’s efforts, success includes:

A dialogue with reporters that led to more balanced coverage
Arming reporters with accurate information about the corporate entity and perspective
A neutral tone used by media when covering the CEO’s announcements
Strategically and proactively driving stories that provided visibility into the company’s people

As the crisis continues, Taylor has enabled a system so that her team can strategically play defense and master the art of crisis management.

Kat Calotta

EvolveMKD

Kat Calotta drove success for several brands at EvolveMKD

Calotta’s marketing expertise and digital savvy has made a significant impact on the public relations and digital communications firm. For her efforts, she has been recognized in the Measurement/Data Professional of the Year category of Ragan & PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year awards.

Kat Calotta, who joined the firm in 2019, currently works on the medical aesthetics and technology brands. Her role involves navigating the legal and compliance guardrails in a creative way. Over the past two years, this shining star has been promoted three times.

As Director, Calotta has assisted in the development and execution of digital advertising across major campaigns. She’s also helped EvolveMKD expand its capabilities.

Calotta is recognized for her ability to drive lead generation for contact lens manufacturer CooperVision’s direct-to-consumer campaign for the Biofinity Energys lens. Her strategy involved leveraging channels; utilizing sales data and personal research to customize audience targeting parameters; creating/implementing an email drip sequence to extend lifecycle touchpoints; and creating a pipeline through a retargeting strategy.

Her efforts resulted in more than 12.2 million impressions. Within 20 days of the launch day, that number exceeded the paid social goals. Calotta also pulled in more than 2,300 leads—a dramatic increase from the previous year’s 100 leads.

She also worked on a campaign for MiSight 1 day contact lens—a CooperVision brand that targets children ages 8 to 12. In the fall, she drove a multi-million-dollar campaign to success, surpassing all outlined KPIs. The campaign was nominated for several awards.

When EvolveMKD launched its first owned research initiative, Calotta drove the paid media campaign to new heights and helped it achieve its goals in lead generation and impressions. The trust that EvolveMKD’s leadership places in Calotta is evident. When she began, the total advertising spend was approximately $5,000 per month; that number has now rocketed to nearly $100,000 per month.

Calotta enjoys being a mentor. A reliable and knowledgeable source, she manages two other staff members—both of which have been promoted twice since she’s taken the reins.

Kevin Martinez

ESPN

Kevin Martinez granted 1.8 million people access to sports—a number that was nearly double his original goal

For his ability to make an impact on communities and underserved youth, Martinez was named a CSR/ESG Professional of the Year in Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicator of the Year Awards.

Kevin Martinez had a mission to make sports a fair game. Back in 2015, the vice president of ESPN’s Corporate Citizenship team set a five-year goal to enable one million kids access to sports. His success demonstrates just how much Martinez abides by ESPN’s mission: “Serve the Sports Fan. Anytime. Anywhere.”

He understands the key role that sports plays in cultivating leadership skills and empowering youth. That’s why Martinez teamed up with nonprofits such as Women’s Sports Foundation’s Sports 4 Life (which works with African American and Hispanic girls); USA Football; and the National Junior Tennis & Learning organizations, which provides low-income kids with access to tennis.

As the lead on ESPN’s winning Access to Sports strategy, Martinez addresses the factors that led to a decline in youth participation. Through the initiative, ESPN invests in building developmentally appropriate programs; building and refurbishing courts and fields worldwide; and investing in training and developing tools and resources, so coaches are always at the top of their games.

Other big wins include:

Revamping ESPN’s fundraising efforts in 2013. As a result, revenue doubled. In 2019, ESPN reached a milestone by generating $100 million since its inception in 1993. In one year, over $15 million was raised.
Strengthening ESPN’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by committing that at least 60% of ESPN’s access to sports grants would benefit Black and African American youth for a total of over $1 million.
Helping launch the Return to Play Fund, which supports Black and Brown youth challenged during the pandemic
Renewing its broadcast agreement with Special Olympics to be the Global Broadcast Sponsor and Global Presenting Sponsor of Special Olympics Unified Sports
Assisted Unified Sports R teams in achieving a 182% increase in athlete and teammate participation and a 503% boost in its number of coaches

Mark R. Miller

Mark R. Miller promotes policies and partnerships to build healthier communities

For his success in improving public health communications in communities across the country, Miller has been named a winner in the PR Professional of the Year-Nonprofit category of Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year Awards.

“Your talent is a spark, but with hard work, it becomes a light,” said Matshona Dhliwayo, a philosopher, entrepreneur, and author.

That rings true for Mark R. Miller. A “serial innovator,” he has utilized his skills to make a social impact in government, philanthropy, fundraising, and health.

After kicking off his career in policy advocacy at the National Governors Association and National Criminal Justice Association, Miller was appointed senior writer and editor in The White House. Beyond writing and reviewing documents for President Clinton, he established new processes and standards for its communications, and developed its editorial style guide.

Miller currently serves as Vice President of Communications at the de Beaumont Foundation. In this role, he helps build awareness of and support for public health. He also amplifies the foundation’s mission to create healthier communities through policies, partnerships, and people.

From 2018 through 2021, Miller led his team through a website redesign, media and content strategy, and digital marketing campaigns. Together, they:

Increased web traffic by more than 525%
Generated 300% more media mentions—a 900% increase in potential reach
Elevated the organization’s social media following by 560%
Attracted 1540% more newsletter subscriptions

During the pandemic, Miller managed influential polling and message creation, which helped federal, state, and local officials communicate public health guidance more effectively. He also helped build collaborations, including the Public Health Communications Collaborative with the CDC Foundation, Trust for America’s Health and the Kresge Foundation, and the “Why Public Health Matters” campaign with 19 national partners.

The messaging and materials Miller and his team created through de Beaumont’s “Changing the COVID Conversation” campaign were utilized by White House officials, members of Congress, governors, mayors, and public health officials nationwide. His writing on health communications has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association Health Forum, the Journal of Communication in Healthcare, the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice, Real Clear Politics, and other publications.

Melissa Waggener Zorkin

WE Communications

WE Communications’ CEO and founder always puts people first

Acting as an agent of change inside and outside the organization, WE Communications global CEO and founder Melissa Waggener Zorkin, has a people-first company mantra and a philanthropic spirit. That’s why she’s Agency Leader of the Year in Ragan’s Communicator’s of the Year Awards.

When Melissa Waggener Zorkin founded WE in 1983, she wanted to tell the technology stories that weren’t being told, and share the incredible ways human lives are transformed by innovation. She knew instinctively tech would play a transformational role on the world stage, changing the way we live and communicate, and she was right.

Over the decades, Melissa has partnered with the world’s most groundbreaking brands, telling their stories and navigating transformation by keeping purpose, the “why” behind innovation, as her north star. Melissa’s own bold sense of purpose is how she led WE through good times and bad, maintaining the agency’s spirit of independence and willingness to put people first, even when times were hard. The approach worked: Melissa and her co-pilot Pam Edstrom grew the company from four tech communications pioneers working out of a free office in Portland, Oregon, into one of the largest global independent communications agencies in the world.

From launching the first version of Microsoft Windows to working with world-class brands like Volvo, McDonald’s, Cisco and VSP, Melissa is uniquely qualified to lead clients through transformation with a simple formula: Keep people and purpose at the center of all decisions. Under Melissa’s direction as CEO, WE Communications pursues its purpose: to use the gift of communication to move people to positive action — for clients and for the world.

Melissa is an advocate and voice for women in business and has dedicated her career to lifting up women and girls inside and outside the agency. She currently sits on the board of ColorComm, an organization dedicated to connecting and empowering women of color in the communications industry, and is a mentor with ColorComm’s Mentorship Program. For more than 15 years, Melissa was a member of the board of directors for Mercy Corps. Through that work and her own passion projects, she’s helped women entrepreneurs start their own businesses, and championed numerous positive social impact initiatives that served communities throughout Africa.

Mentoring young people in communications is one of Melissa’s top priorities. As a member of the Board of Advisors to the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Public Relations, Melissa works with leaders of the world’s top brands to help connect students and academics with the PR industry. Melissa also honored the legacy of her business partner Pam Edstrom by establishing the Pam Edstrom Scholarship and Endowment Fund to support undergraduate communications students in the Pacific Northwest, where WE first opened its doors. The impact of her work, and her ability to mentor countless individuals to harness the power of their voices, earned her place in the PRWeek Hall of Femme in 2017, and her induction to the ICCO PR Hall of Fame in 2020.

As CEO of WE, she drives the agency’s commitment to creating an inclusive workplace where differing ideas, perspectives, experiences, lifestyles, and cultures are embraced and respected. In 2021, for the fourth year in a row, WE received a score of 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), which measures U.S. corporate policies and practices that impact LGBTQ employees. WE was also named one of PRWeek’s Best Places to Work in 2020 and 2021.

Melissa has spoken about purpose-driven leadership at Cannes Lions, Mumbrella360, ColorComm, SHEQUALITY, Global ICCO PR Summit and the Indie Summit. She’s a regular contributor to WE’s blog, where she shares her perspective on current events, civility, leadership, ethics and innovation.

For balance, Melissa relies on her centering sense of humor and her circle of family and friends. Books — all of them — are her oxygen. If she’s not working, you can bet she’s outside, trekking through mountains to see the gorillas in Rwanda or cruising the city streets on her Vespa, living each day with passion and wonder.

Meredith Rosenberg

Meredith Rosenberg helps feed the nation’s college students

Meredith Rosenberg, VP of communications and creative services at Chartwells Higher Ed, brought team members together with internal programs celebrating diversity. The external programs she lead reached millions of students and gained her Ragan’s Social Media Communicator of the Year award in its Communicators of the Year & Rising Star Awards.

The pandemic represented a distinct challenge for the school contract food service center. If school campuses were not closed, students were wary of gathering for meals. For Meredith Rosenberg, the answer was first a new webinar series and then a whole slate of campaigns.

The internal campaign saw major social media engagement wins. Corporate social media accounts jumped 27% to 20.4MM, 17% for engagements (1.1MM), and 17% in followers. Posts built around the Our People, Their Stories internal promotions received 102% more engagement than other posts on average.

Our People, Our Stories highlighted employees who wished to share in monthly cultural themes, from Pride Month to Native American Heritage and Black History.

“I’m incredibly proud to work for a company that embraces diversity and celebrates different cultures and individuality,” said Francesca Touma, district marketing manager for Chartwells at NYU. “I was fortunate to be asked to share my story during Hispanic Heritage Month and was floored by how many positive messages I received from colleagues, mentors, and Chartwells partners. In a time where we have experienced hardships, it’s refreshing be a part of a team that values its members’ backgrounds, where they came from, and always roots for them to succeed.”

The external campaign Meredith spearheaded also worked well. For Thanksgiving, Chartwells donated over 40,000+ meals, $8,000 to shelters, and over 400 partnerships to positively impact campus communities nationwide.

The JoyFul Campaign, the external program, also saw strong media success. The program secured 63 unique placements so far, including a feature story in Forbes. In total, it saw 49 million impressions. Both clients and students praised the JoyFul campaign.

“It’s not just having a party. It really is a festival about happiness. It’s community-building. I don’t think it’s ever been done before. It’s huge, and only Chartwells could put together something like this,” said Celebrity Chef Jet Tila, Food Network, who worked with Cartwells on FestiFul, a college street festival that included a livestream to millions of students, on-campus activities, and food donation.

Regina Carswell Russo

Regina Carswell Russo managed Covid-19 messaging for the Cincinnati region

The program she created generated more than $400,000 worth of publicity, captured more than 100,000 viewers, and was nominated for two Emmy awards. For her success, she was named an honoree in the PR Professional of the Year—Agency category of Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year Awards.

During the COVID crisis, Regina Carswell Russo prompted citizens to listen and act in Cincinnati’s best interest. She’s also met client goals and doubled her client list at the strategic communications agency she helms. For her success, she was named one of the most powerful Business Leaders in Cincinnati Magazine’s Power 300.

As CEO/Founder and Chief Strategist of RRight Now Communications. Carswell Russo successfully led the Regional COVID Communications Center, also known as RC3. As the strategic advisor, she coordinated communications among regional hospital systems and utilized the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber to coordinate with business leaders.

Carswell Russo’s work was essential in keeping businesses and schools open and citizens safe. Her work was recognized by Ohio Senator Rob Portman and Governor Mike DeWine’s offices. She was also featured on CNN.

When the southwest Ohio region experienced a third wave of COVID in December, she worked to unify everyone and reinforce safety measures to control the number of cases. She created, executive produced, and coordinated an hour-long prime-time locally syndicated special, GETTING TO ZERO. She also tapped hundreds of communities and corporate partners to help more than 2 million citizens stay safe.

Carswell Russo also collaborated with six local news outlets to spotlight its successes and gained support from the Chief Communications Officer at Procter & Gamble. Beyond providing production services at no cost, Procter & Gamble co-sponsored the special program. The owner of the Cincinnati Reds, radio and television personalities, and health professionals all pitched in to provide on-air testimonies.

Other accomplishments include her appointment as strategic advisor for the first woman President of United Way of Greater Cincinnati—a big feat considering its 100-year-old history.

Tommaso Di Giovanni

Philip Morris International

Tommaso Di Giovanni has helped propel Philip Morris International’s (PMI) transition into a smoke-free future through a comprehensive communications campaign, including Unsmoke Your World campaign

For his success in elevating PMI’s voice and mission while opening channels for meaningful dialogues in 100+ markets worldwide, Di Giovanni was recognized in the PR Professional of the Year—Corporate category of Ragan and PR Daily’s Communicators of the Year awards.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States. Nearly 40 million American adults still smoke.

Tommaso Di Giovanni, Vice President for International Communications, Market Activation and Support of the international tobacco company, is making strides toward a smoke-free future. PMI aims to replace cigarettes with better alternatives. By 2025, its goal is to generate more than 50% of its revenue from non-combustible products.

Di Giovanni led a comprehensive communications campaign, including the implementation of PMI’s “Unsmoke Your World” campaign, which spanned 60 countries. More than 150 communicators worldwide helped forward PMI’s mission through knowledge sharing, news generation, and a mix of paid, owned, and earned engagements.

Surveys reveal that most people in many countries around the globe still erroneously believe that nicotine is the primary source of smoking-related diseases. The fact is combustion and approximately 100 harmful compounds found in smoke contribute to disease. Through their work, Di Giovanni and his team countered misinformation, misconceptions, and skepticism over smoke-free products

Their successes include:

Enhancing regulatory communications and public affairs and improving guidance and assets for consumer communications in 100+ countries
Generating more than 50,000 feature stories—more than double the results of the previous year
Helping PMI elevate its reputation while boosting understanding of the differences in the smoke-free product category
PMI’s visibility represents up to three-quarters of the tobacco industry’s presence in the media in most countries

As the voice of the company, Di Giovanni engages in fact-driven discussions with key stakeholder groups and press. He speaks English, Italian, French, and Portuguese.

Anat Team

Anat Gerstein, Inc.

Supporting nonprofits, Anat Gerstein embraces a wide range of challenges

From health care to Black History Month, the agency reaches out to attract the right people. It’s an Agency Team of the Year—Multiple Campaigns in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

In 2021, as the pandemic stretched into its second year, many nonprofit organizations worried that donations, funding and support would dissipate. Recognizing this challenge, the 15-member team at Anat Gerstein, which works exclusively with nonprofits, sprang into action to get its clients in front of the audiences, donors and elected officials who make a difference.

Here’s a look at some of their successes:

Amida Care and Alliance for Positive Change

Anat Gerstein launched a campaign to delay implementations of 340B, a policy which threated to alter Medicare pharmacy coverage and harm vulnerable New Yorkers. Working on behalf of Amida Care and the Alliance for Positive Change, two nonprofits deeply involved with the health care in the community.

The team conducted an aggressive media campaign, illustrating the impact of a complex and bureaucratic policy change that would result in thousands of people’s health being managed by a system that didn’t understand their needs. Digital and print campaigns prompted people to contact their local legislators and urge them not to change the policy, or at least delay it until further study was conducted.

In the end, New York’s governor decided to delay the implementation of 340B.

Flushing Town Hall

Cultural venues suffered during the pandemic, unable to host audiences for performances and events. Anat Gerstein supported Flushing Town Hall’s Black History Month Trilogy performances with a campaign targeted to national press for virtual attendance and the local NYC press for in-person attendance.

As a result, The New York Times recommended the Trilogy in two separate columns. It was also recommended by the Chicago Sun-Times, Playbill, Time Out NY, 6 Sq Ft, and NYC-Arts. Black News Channel, Amsterdam News and TheaterMania featured interviews with the performers.

The coverage led to sold-out in-person performances. The virtual recording, which was originally scheduled to come down after 48 hours, remained available online for an additional month in response to audience demand.

Mekky Media Relations

Mekky Media forges close client relationships to reach the top

The boutique PR firm helped three major clients score enviable success in 2021. It’s an Agency Team of the Year—Multiple Campaigns in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

By working as a strategic partner with its clients and getting to know them inside and out, boutique PR agency Mekky Media doubled both its client list and its team roster in 2021 and saw 62% revenue growth. How did it get there? Check out some of its success stories:

Adalina

A Michelin-starred chef and four Chicago business/hospitality veterans enlisted the Mekky team to position their new restaurant, Adalina, and promote its opening in June 2021—not an easy task during a pandemic. The Mekky team relied on its close media relationships to tie Adalina to Chicago’s reopening, leading to national media coverage.

The team secured more than 100 placements in outlets such as the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, Fox News, Eater, Thrillist and Food Insider, and more than 450 million earned media impressions.

PharmaCann

PharmaCann is one of the country’s largest privately held cannabis companies. Mekky Media’s objective was to drive brand awareness, traffic and sales for its dispensaries. The team’s strategic promotion tactics included a partnership with Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, along with a national dispensary expansion.

From February to July 2021, Mekky garnered substantial coverage for the opening of four Illinois dispensaries and one in Pennsylvania. Mekky’s tactics generated extensive publicity for PharmaCann’s community engagement, celebrity endorsements and openings, securing 123 pieces of coverage and more than 142 million earned media impressions.

Abt Electronics

Glenview, Illinois-based retailer Abt is one of Mekky Media’s longest-running clients. The agency has consistently garnered national media for some of the company’s unique stories, such as double-digit growth every year since 1936 and green initiatives like Abt’s 12,000-square-foot recycling center.

In 2021, the Mekky team’s knowledge of Abt’s business, combined with its close partnership with management, resulted in more than 400 placements in The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, Yahoo Finance, Popular Mechanics, New York Magazine and more. It also generated more than 1.28 billion earned media impressions.

Enterprise Communications

Atrium Health

Enterprise communications team steps up to the challenge in Year Two of COVID-19

Atrium Health communicators earned major coverage for the health care center’s work, including a mass vaccination event, a heart transplant and a violence prevention program. It’s a Communications Team of the Year (more than 25 team members) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

During the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the enterprise communications team at Atrium Health had three goals: Enhance the Atrium Health’s reputation as the preeminent care provider in the Southeast; earn recognition for clinical excellence and thought leadership within the health care industry; and keep its workforce of 70,000 teammates inspired and informed.

When former Carolina Panthers star Greg Olsen’s son T.J. underwent a successful heart transplant at Atrium Health Levine Children’s, the operation earned national media coverage and pickup in all local television media outlets, with T.J.’s journey receiving more than 400 media placements.

When Atrium Health formed a public-private partnership for vaccine distribution with Honeywell, Tepper Sports & Entertainment (owners of the Carolina Panthers) and Charlotte Motor Speedway, the enterprise communications took on the task of safely orderly and equitably filling tens of thousands of vaccine appointments in just a few days.

Mass vaccination events were scheduled at major sports venues, transportation hubs, college campuses and even breweries. The team’s work was instrumental to delivering more than one-third of the roughly 600,000 vaccines administered, but it also resulted in the creation of a playbook shared with the nation’s governors and the White House as a model for others to follow.

For a violence prevention program with the city of Charlotte, Atrium Health deployed violence intervention specialists to work with victims entering its trauma center. Local media outlets covered the program, reaching more than 177,000 viewers in just one week, and 39 published stories had a potential audience of 1.65 million.

The enterprise communication team facilitated hundreds of media interviews, more than 60 with national media outlets, with more than 30 on national cable or network news shows. Since Jan. 1, 2021, more than 15,000 mentions of Atrium Health have appeared in media coverage, with a potential reach of 9.1 billion viewers.

Plus, in the eight primary media outlets in its home market of Charlotte, North Carolina have covered Atrium Health more than 2,700 times.

Prudential Communications

Prudential Financial

Prudential communicators transform their team and the company

The team engaged employees, boosted positive financial coverage and positioned Prudential as a diversity champion. It’s a Communications Team of the Year (more than 25 team members) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

Prudential’s communications team transformed itself in 2021, shifting from a collection of fragmented teams supporting disconnected parts of the company to a new collaborative organizational structure connecting leaders, issues and stakeholders.

How did the team accomplish all this? On the workforce front, it engaged thousands of employees in leading the company’s transformation, contributing hundreds of ideas that generated millions of dollars in enterprise value.

For investors and financial media tired of Prudential’s inconsistent financial performance, the communications team used earnings calls and strategic media opportunities to communicate enterprise strategy, sharing information on performance, future capital redeployment and mergers/acquisitions. This led to consistently positive media coverage. The team also nearly doubled the number of media engagements for Prudential’s asset management business, securing more than 2,233 engagements.

Positioning Prudential as a leading expert on the future of work and the American workforce, its 2021 “Pulse of the American Worker” surveys addressed pandemic-driven opportunities for both employers and employees. This boosted Prudential’s reputation, generating more than 127 original articles and 218 million unique media impressions in top-tier outlets like Bloomberg, Fortune, Axios and NPR.

Finally, to establish Prudential’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, the communications team engaged with 6,747 Prudential employees through 126 interactive forums. Seventy-four percent of employees felt the company was fully inclusive, up from 58% in 2020. The team also published nine racial equity commitments, earning positive coverage in media outlets like Business Insider, Forbes and Bloomberg.

Ascension Communications Team

Ascension

Ascension team takes on the pandemic

The team focused on the health care system’s commitment to delivering care to the most vulnerable communities, making it a Communications Team of the Year (more than 25 team members) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

Ascension’s marketing and communications team, with nearly 180 team members across nearly 20 markets, is crucial to the health care system’s mission to deliver compassionate, personalized care, with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable. The COVID-19 pandemic called for round-the-clock collaboration and coordination to continue meeting those challenges.

The team’s efforts were successful, securing more than 8,000 earned media placements and 670 million media impressions, which generated $341 million in publicity value. It also produced 29 episodes of its Good Day Ascension podcast, earning more than 8,300 total unique downloads; each podcast reached as many as 26,400 listeners.

Early in the pandemic, the team established a national communications command center to share updates, information and insights while managing media opportunities and inquiries across markets. The team positioned executives and clinical leaders as spokespeople to highlight Ascension’s expertise and role as an industry leader in response to the pandemic. They also used op-eds, earned media and marketing initiatives to urge consumers to continue seeking preventive and emergency care as necessary.

The team also prioritized Ascension’s commitments to equity and access to care across all messaging, like spotlighting the health system’s efforts to prevent new technologies like virtual health care from exacerbating existing gaps in care for rural populations and people of color. Ascension worked to ensure communications about vaccines addressed specific needs and concerns of all populations, especially Black and Latino Americans.

In the months following the death of George Floyd, the team helped launch the ABIDE framework, built on the hallmarks of Appreciation, Belongingness, Inclusivity, Diversity and Equality, expanding Ascension’s diversity and inclusion efforts.

As a result of all these efforts, the Ascension team’s creativity and commitment to Ascension’s mission were instrumental in elevating the organization’s national reputation and engaging all key audiences.

Roku’s Platform Communications Team

Roku, Inc.

Comms team positions Roku as No. 1 streaming platform

Roku’s platform communications team boosted acquisitions, new shows and Roku executives to generate coverage and achieve success in 20231. It’s a Communications Team of the Year (Less than 25 team members) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Stars Awards.

Roku’s platform communications team plays a key role in positioning it as America’s No. 1 streaming platform, reaching some 56 million households. Focusing on Roku’s content distribution, programming and advertising offerings, the team ran some of the biggest PR campaigns in the entertainment and technology sector last year, contributing to an 82% increase in Roku’s platform revenue in the third quarter of 2021.

To highlight Roku’s value, the team targeted advertising/marketing, entertainment and business publications with multipronged media campaigns, securing more than 150 speaking opportunities for Roku’s executives and establishing a strong presence at key events such as IAB’s NewFronts, Advertising Week and Tribeca X. Additionally, the team’s work generated more 500 press engagements (interviews, etc.), resulting in more than 4,000 stories for the platform business.

In 2021 the team led communications efforts for four key acquisitions: Quibi, the This Old House brand, the Advanced Advertising Business from Nielsen and the branded content team from Funny Or Die, which led to the launch of Roku’s Brand Studio. Less than a year later, the team secured media attention for two new programs, “Roku Recommends” and “The Show Next Door.” A successful media blitz for “Roku Recommends” spurred interest from top advertisers like Walmart and led to more episodes of the show being announced; viewers ranked it as a Top 10 video-on-demand TV series by unique views.

Promotion of “The Show Next Door” resulted in 57 million total press impressions, driving viewership and brand awareness for the show’s partner Maker’s Mark. The program hit seventh place (out of more than 150 shows) in comedy for The Roku Channel in September 2021, its success translating to a 25% lift in brand favorability for Maker’s Mark.

All these communication efforts, targeting business and entertainment media outlets with a consistent drumbeat of news and thoughtful media engagement, enabled The Roku Channel to capture 50% of all media coverage in the third quarter of 2021. Viewership on The Roku Channel grew five times faster than the overall Roku platform, reaching record viewership numbers each quarter. The team has further positioned Roku Originals executives as thought leaders and gatekeepers to future productions, as seen in a feature in The Wall Street Journal.

Blue State Strategic Communications

Blue State works through its clients to inspire social action

Its strategic communications practice supports clients like the Natural Resources Defense Council and senator Elizabeth Warren. Its efforts make it a Communications Team of the year (less than 25 team members) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Stars Awards.

Blue State is a creative and technology agency supporting organizations that want to inspire action on social issues. Its strategic communications practice, launched in April 2020, aims to seamlessly integrate strong storytelling with grassroots movement building.

It’s partnered with more than 30 clients, from the We Demand More Coalition and the Eleanor Crook Foundation to the Natural Resources Defense Council, along with political campaigns and candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Cori Bush—acquiring more $3.5 million in revenues within its first 18 months of operations.

The Blue State strategic communications team is composed of speechwriters, video producers, writers, journalists and strategists. Its work encompasses advocacy, global nonprofits, brands and progressive campaigns.

Among the highlights of 2021, the team:

Put pressure on lawmakers to pass COVID-19 relief for women, especially for women of color.
Joined forces with global nonprofits like the Eleanor Crook Foundation to help secure billions of dollars of new funding to combat global malnutrition.
Worked with philanthropic leaders at Chicago Beyond to redefine the ways people think about institutional giving.
Helped craft democracy-shaping initiatives while confronting election misinformation campaigns.

Blue State describes its strategic communications practice as the intersection of public affairs and public relations: Relationships with the press are important, but so are its clients’ relationships with their supporters, peers, funders, elected officials and others. Because working in silos can disrupt a client’s success, its integrated approach—creating a messaging matrix or overarching messaging guidance for all aspects of a project—is key to the consistency of its messaging.

Marketing, Communications, Patient Experience and Community Outreach Team

Renown Health

Renown Health team boosts health care network’s nationwide rep

The Nevada-based network improved its numbers with fresh branding, a new website and a proactive COVID-19 response, making it a Communications Team of the Year (less than 25 team members) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

With more than 7,000 employees, Renown Health serves northern Nevada, Lake Tahoe and northeast California—a population in excess of 2 million. Its public image is crucial to building confidence in the services it provides.

One measure of that image is Renown Health’s National Reputation Score—and the customer engagement team improved that score from 0 in 2016 to 18 in 2018 (on a 100-point scale), then to 21 in 2020 and a new high of 43 for the second quarter of 2021.

Here’s how:

The “Fight the Good Fight “branding campaign. Based on research from Rob Klein & Partners and executed by an in-house team with support from ad agency BVK, this campaign emphasized Renown’s brand values of hope and determination. The branding, social media and marketing efforts boosted ad recall (aided and unaided) for Renown in the second quarter of 2021, and the inspirational messages of “Never give up” and “Fight the good fight” resonated with key consumer groups.
Website. Renown’s website is often the first interaction a patient has when seeking care or information. In 2018, Renown’s marketing team began working on the foundation of a new website, including launching a rating system and transparent reviews for Renown Health providers. The team also launched a Hometown Health microsite for open enrollment and real-time appointment scheduling. Renown.org is now on one universal platform, with more than 2.2 million visits from July 30, 2020 through June 30, 2021.
Pandemic response. On Feb. 25, 2020, a day ahead of President Trump’s first speech on COVID-19, the Renown leadership team implemented a Health Incident Command Structure to serve the community, organizing resources to mitigate, prepare, respond, communicate and recover from the COVID-19 outbreak and enhance Renown’s capacity to provide access to care. Renown also implemented a plan to communicate consistent safety, prevention and precaution messaging, creating and distributing timely, accurate, personal, consistent and relevant communications customized to audience needs to reduce anxiety and maintain Renown’s leadership position for patient safety among key stakeholders.

Universal Engineering Sciences Corporate Communications Team

Universal Engineering Sciences

Massive growth forced company to build communications from scratch

Universal Engineering Services had to ramp up communications fast after nine acquisitions in just one year. Their success has made them a Communications Team of the Year (less than 25 team members) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

After nine acquisitions in a single year, geotechnical engineering and consulting firm Universal Engineering Sciences (UES) exploded from 900 employees in Florida and Nevada to 3,100 people across 20 states. That meant building a communications program from scratch in a highly fragmented industry where most workers spend their days, and many nights, on construction sites.

The first effort was aimed at internal communications. The new “Weekly Wins” newsletter focused on stories that emphasized collaboration across businesses and contributions to UES’ growth and success, including media mentions, community efforts, sales wins, significant milestones and team member recognition. After each acquisition, an issue of Weekly Wins was dedicated to welcoming the new team members, building relationships and fostering trust.

Two-thirds of employees read and contribute to the newsletter on a regular basis. The audience includes drillers, drivers and technicians who find value in connecting.

To address external audiences, UES focused on creating a national public relations strategy. After interviewing several agencies, UES selected the Richards Group as a strategic thought partner. They developed a communications toolkit to standardize acquisitions announcements; it includes internal announcements, managers’ talking points, press releases, social media promotion and internal communications support.

As a result, UES has earned mentions in more than 100 news stories in 12 months, translating into more than 110 million potential impressions from industry, regional and national publications. The team also handle issues management and crisis communication support, as well as media training for key spokespeople.

Social media was new to the organization, and the team needed to build a persuasive case to help leadership understand the importance of controlling the digital narrative. They worked to develop a friendly and authentic voice that encourages listeners to engage with UES content. Popular campaigns included “Women in Construction,” which generated more than 30,000 impressions, and “Best Advice to Grads,” which generated more than 25,000 impressions.

The team also collaborated with UES’ recruiters to build several targeted campaigns to attract talent, including “Get Your Hands Dirty with Us” and “Swipe Right for a New Career,” which led to a 25% increase in applicants.

DIA Podcast Team

DIA Connections Podcast

DIA podcast illuminates compelling stories about intelligence work

The Defense Intelligence Agency’s ‘DIA Connections’ tells stories about fighting fentanyl, the Iran hostage crisis and the search for Osama bin Laden. The team behind it is a Creative/Digital Team of the Year in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

Since launching in June 2020, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s “DIA Connections” podcast has released more than 14 episodes; during season one, listenership grew to more than 2,700, based on Spotify and iTunes Connect analytics.

The podcast team meets once a week to discuss story ideas and explore current events that illustrate DIA’s impact on national security. The team works with the DIA director, directorates and the external intelligence community to identify subject-matter experts and vet potential interviewees.

Then, by blending interviews with actual event participants, audio recordings and stylized voiceovers, the team produces compelling stories that provide depth to the role DIA has played in significant events throughout U.S. history.

DIA Connections has been featured in DoD News, the Washington Examiner and Podcast Business Journal. Episodes have been praised by former director of national intelligence James Clapper, the staff of the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security Ronald Moultrie, and members of the congressional intelligence oversight committee.

Examples of the podcast’s content include:

Fentanyl. For an episode broadcast June 17, 2020, the team examined DIA’s role in tracking production-and-distribution networks trading synthetic opioids, including fentanyl. It included interviews with Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and Brian Drake, then-director of artificial intelligence for the Future Capabilities and Innovation Office at DIA.
The Iran hostage crisis. On Nov. 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Iran was overrun by Iranian students. For the next 444 days, 52 Americans were held in captivity. This episode, broadcast on Feb. 5, 2021, featured an in-depth conversation with one of those hostages, Joseph Hall, who told the emotional story of an event that seized the world’s attention. The episode also featured an interview with ABC News broadcasting legend Ted Koppel and an insightful discussion with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Donald F. McHenry.
Finding bin Laden. This episode from May 3, 2021, showcased DIA’s efforts to locate the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, relying on insights from a former senior intelligence analyst who was part of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism. The episode also included a behind-the-scenes account of the raid from former White House photographer Pete Souza.

Internal Communications

Atrium Health

Atrium Health’s comms team confronted phase two of the pandemic

When the Delta variant arrived, the ‘We’re All in This Together’ message wouldn’t work anymore, so the internal communications team focused on resilience along with more information. It’s an Internal Communications Team of the Year (1-9 people) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

In August 2021, teammates and leaders at Atrium Health were all experiencing new levels of stress with the appearance of the Delta variant. The internal communications team knew that the “We’re all in this together” messages that had worked before were no longer sufficient.

Throughout the year, Atrium Health’s internal communications team worked to provide employees with the latest COVID-19 news and organizational updates, while also helping its 70,000+ workforce build and sustain resilience in the second year of a global pandemic.

In all, the team created nearly 1,000 pieces of internal content for distribution to employees throughout 2021, resulting in more than 6 million views. Email open rates, views on intranet pages and viewers of content on the mobile app were, on average, 230% higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The team sought professional advice from Atrium’s behavioral health and spiritual care departments. The behavioral health team provided resources like employee assistance programs and 24/7 call centers. The internal communications team had promoted these during the pandemic, and highlighted them again for teammates during the Delta surge.

In partnership with the spiritual care department, the communications team offered “Code Lavender,” a tool used to help provide emotional support to health care workers (much like “Code Blue” provides medical support for patients in crisis). The Code Lavender campaign had more than 40,000 views, and was one of the most engaged-with pieces of content in August 2021.

Atrium Health uses a mobile app, intranet, organizational briefings, webinars and email to deliver essential information to team members so they can provide the best care possible to patients. Although the team works to inform managers first, it communicates directly with staff members to allow access to the latest operational information.

In July 2021, the team also executed a communications plan to announce the organization was requiring COVID-19 vaccination for all teammates. The team had already been providing news, information and stories about COVID-19 vaccination; after the requirement was announced, those efforts increased. The team shared testimonials from teammates, interviews with experts and tools to enable one-on-one conversations.

Internal Communications Team

Twitter

Twitter talks to employees too

The pandemic forced Twitter to deliver information and support to its workforce through FAQs, Slack, a microsite and more. The internal comms team is an Internal Communications team of the Year (1‑9 people) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Stars Awards.

Just as Twitter’s purpose is “to serve the public conversation,” its internal communications team’s purpose is to serve the internal conversation—which shifted overnight as the COVID-19 pandemic shook the platform and it people to the core.

In 2021 the team’s goal was clear: Guide employees through massive change in a short period of time, maintain Twitter’s #LoveWhereYouWork culture, and deliver clear, consistent and informative communications tied to the company’s purpose.

As guidelines changed almost daily, the comms team sought to deliver information faster than before. It created a series of easily accessible FAQs to serve as a single source of facts for all policies and guidance related to the pandemic. Encouragement to use Slack led to speedy adoption, helping maintain a sense of community when many people felt isolated. Multiple Slack channels featured topics like meeting productivity, working from home, manager guidance, wellness and COVID-19 support, providing on-demand answers with a human connection.

Managers played a key role in the support effort, with the communications team initiating monthly check-ins to give employees a safe place to talk about their personal and work challenges and collaborate on a path forward. To support managers too, the team implemented bimonthly all-hands meetings called “Managers, Assemble!” for managers to receive updates, ask questions and build community.

Employee engagement surveys asked new questions to learn how people were handling working from home, where they were struggling and how the company could help them. As the company began preparing employees for office reopenings, it created resource materials to supplement emails about the new in-office experience. These included a microsite with a global and local office playbook with all the reopening details, and a training video to show employees what a day in the office would look like.

The efforts worked. The April 2021 employee engagement survey saw an increase in scores focused on pride, intent to stay and internal communications. Internal comms (“Twitter is doing a good job of communicating with employees”), scored a 76—13 points higher than the industry benchmark and six points higher than in the pre-COVID survey. The company also scored 80 for communication methods, indicating that employees were generally satisfied with the communication methods used by their teams.

Power Internal Communications

Tacoma Power

Comms trio boosts engagement with video, a podcast and more

Tacoma Power’s internal communications team spent 2021 on a variety of projects to bring managers and employees closer together. They’re an Internal Communications Team of the year (1‑9 people) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

Tacoma Power’s team of three internal communicators—Alex Abplanalp (Internal Communications manager), Lay Conn (senior multimedia lead), and Sarah Nystrom (senior strategic communications lead)—is responsible for facilitating conversations within business units and between the workforce and senior leaders, as well as telling stories that encourage connection to the utility’s mission, vision, and values. The challenges of the pandemic pushed the trio to be more creative, adaptive, and responsive in the pursuit of these goals.

One of their key projects in 2021 was creating the Community Value First Strategic Communications campaign. The team put together a strategy briefing book, a video series featuring each section in Tacoma Power, and a strategy map, all designed as tools for senior leaders to share when discussing Tacoma Power’s new strategic plan with their work groups. The team received a MarCom Gold Award for their work.

To enhance employee communication, the team created a Microsoft Teams channel (The Outlet) for field employees and supervisors to narrow the gap between field and office staff. The effort involved developing and curating content and engagement opportunities tailored to field employees’ needs, making them feel valued by the organization.

In 2021, the team also launched two new video series to recognize and highlight Tacoma Power’s utility workers. The Employee Spotlight video series recognizes a work group or employee, exploring the types of projects they work on, to show how each worker plays an integral role at the utility. The Job Shadow series showcases a job at locations across the utility—hydro projects, hatcheries, park grounds, and office buildings—and profiles the person behind each role. The team received a Northwest Regional Emmy Award nomination for their work on the Job Shadow: Hydro Utility Worker video.

With the help of three exceptional summer interns, the team produced Tacoma Power’s first podcast, Boots & Suits: Breaking the Stereotypes. The podcast is hosted by Tacoma Power Superintendent Chris Robinson and features conversations with a field worker (“boot”) and an office worker (“suit”) on a specific subject such as safety, thankfulness, and workplace modernization. The podcast received 250 downloads within a month of launching with only simple word-of-mouth promotion.

Communications and Public Affairs

California State University, Stanislaus

University comms team mixed and matched to keep information flowing through the pandemic

The team at California State University-Stanislaus welcomed staff and students back, pushed vaccinations, launched a fresh website and much more, making it an Internal Communications Team of the Year (10‑24 people) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

When the pandemic hit, the communications and public relations team at California State University-Stanislaus partnered with student affairs, academic affairs, admissions and outreach, student media and athletics to create an integrated university communications team devoted to keeping all university constituents informed and involved as the crisis wore on.

The collaboration continued in 2021. The team delivers fresh, relevant and targeted content using a mix of communication channels, providing weekly updates and clarifying ever-evolving safety measures and protocols, while keeping students, faculty and staff connected to campus as they continued to work from home.

When the communications team prepared to welcome all faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members back to campus after a year of remote work and learning, it launched the Warriors Take Care campaign, focused on sharing health and well-being resources with faculty, staff and students and letting them know what to expect when they returned to campus.

The university’s vaccination requirement quickly shifted the campaign’s focus to encouraging everyone to get the shot. From July‑Sept. 2021, the team produced 171 social media posts, more than seven video messages, 15 emails and numerous texts, and also launched the “Taking Care of You” student podcast. As a result, approximately 75% of all faculty, staff and students returning to campus are fully vaccinated.

In addition to those projects, the team also launched a redesigned website, collaborated with the university’s office of technology to refine the university’s mobile app and hosted “Next Up: Forward Thinking at Stan State,” a series of interactive forums, videos and articles featuring the work of faculty, students, staff and administrators who didn’t let the pandemic daunt their efforts.

All these initiatives and campaigns were on top of the team’s the daily job of managing the university’s social media channels, weekly customized internal communications, media relations, brand management and individualized campuswide emails. During 2021 overall, the university’s targeting of faculty and staff for news and information reached an engagement rate of 90% and maintained an average click-thru rate of 44%.

3M Employee and Executive Communications Team

3M communicators forge a new path for guiding the employee experience

A new podcast and a new newsletter were only some of the projects the 3M team successfully launched in 2021, making it an Internal Communications Team of the Year (25 people or more) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

In 2021, the employee and executive communications team at 3M set out to rethink what communications could do for the company, and built an employee-based communications experience with clear, compelling and consistently branded content.

One key effort was the launch of the “Work Your Way” initiative, a new approach to workplace flexibility recognizing that trust and flexibility are redefining the future of work. Work Your Way allows nonproduction employees to work flexibly—onsite, hybrid or remote.

The team launched the program with a live CEO huddle and a global email featuring an overview of the new approach and personal examples. It also provided employee guides, FAQs, “people like me” scenarios and toolkits for executives, supervisors and area leaders to share with their local employees. The team also engaged local news outlets for an exclusive interview with a 3M leader and an employee, promoting the video via LinkedIn as well.

The announcement generated a positive response from employees: The CEO email, for example, had 83.5% open rate.

Another project was creating the “What’s Next at 3M” podcast. The idea was to take employees behind the scenes to learn about growth opportunities, new businesses or ventures, new products, partnerships, collaborations and more. The team’s editorial approach targeted growth areas for 3M, including indoor air quality, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and much more. A podcast distribution platform let the team offer it wherever employees get their podcasts (Apple, Spotify, etc.).

The podcasts receive an average of 500+ downloads in the first week of each episode.

To better equip senior leaders to communicate timely topics with their teams, the team launched a new monthly newsletter. It was based on feedback from 3M’s 2020 global employee survey and other listening channels, which showed that 3Mers wanted to understand more about the company’s direction and the business reasons behind key strategic priorities.

The “Leadership Monthly” newsletter shares information about 3M’s strategic priorities, outlines specific actions leaders should take for consistent communication and helps ensure company messaging is clear and effective. It specifies what senior leaders should “know,” “share” and “do” to help cascade important information to their teams.

The newsletter was quickly adopted by 3M employees, with 81% average open rate.

Ascension Marketing Team

Ascension

Ascension’s health campaign asked, ’How are you feeling today?’

The marketing team’s efforts included a word-of-mouth campaign and a personal message from Olympic athlete Shannon Miller. They’re a Marketing Team of the Year in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

As the COVID-19 pandemic entered its second year, the marketing team at health care network Ascension focused on supporting patient and employee wellness—not only related to the pandemic, but on keeping people and communities safe and healthy during a difficult time.

Ascension’s marketing team focused on the need to communicate safety messaging across the system it serves in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Its goal was to not only reassure patients but to encourage them to seek care in times of uncertainty.

Research showed that 63% of people would schedule a doctor’s appointment if encouraged by their own doctor, a friend or a family member. Ascension set out to create a word-of-mouth campaign led by a powerful question: “How are you feeling today?” using trusted voices like physicians and Ascension associates to urge friends, family and neighbors to seek care.

Ascension associates were a cornerstone of the campaign, so the marketing team provided content to 160,000 associates and 40,000 aligned providers to share with patients in person and online. Associates also received email resources and messages; 219 clinics received a toolkit with posters, window clings, flyers, pens, table tents, placemat clings, yard signs and template letters.

Through email and direct mail, Ascension reached 573,000 homes, resulting in more than 76,000 clinical encounters the following month. Ascension also placed 1.7+ million doorknob hangers on patient and prospect doors. The team posted patient videos on social media to share reassuring patient stories.

To personalize the campaign, the marketing team developed and launched a national advertising campaign featuring Olympic gold medal gymnast Shannon Miller in the weeks leading up to the 2021 Summer Olympics. Miller shared her experience overcoming ovarian cancer with an early diagnosis reinforcing the importance of women making time for annual medical appointments and preventative screenings.

The campaign was featured in People magazine and other important outlets. Overall, it earned more than 27 media hits, creating $1,528,818 in publicity value.

The Trevor Project Communications Team

The Trevor Project

The Trevor Project leads the fight against suicide in LGBTQ youth

Its PR team’s tactics included AI, a national survey and a partnership with Lil Nas X. The team is a PR Team of the Year (1–9 people) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Stars Awards.

In 2021, The Trevor Project’s communications team set out to elevate the organization’s brand recognition and public perception through a series of strategic press announcements, speaking engagements, celebrity partnerships and more.

In all, Trevor was mentioned in more than 31,800 articles in 2021, compared to 17,000 articles in 2020, and garnered nearly 52.2 billion estimated media impressions, compared to 37.5 billion the previous year. The organization earned nearly $113.4 million in estimated publicity value, more than doubling 2021’s $40.2 million.

Additionally, Trevor responded to more than 200,000 crisis contacts via phone, text and chat in 2021, compared to 150,000 in 2020.

The Trevor Project is the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. The team executed several projects throughout 2021, including:

Crisis Contact Simulator. In February, the team launched an AI-powered counselor training tool that simulates digital conversations with LGBTQ youth in crisis. It secured an exclusive in MIT Technology Review, followed by feature stories in top-tier outlets including Fast Company, Mashable, Good Morning America and The Next Web, reaching 11 million unique monthly visitors.
National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. In May, the team launched its third annual national survey targeting top-tier press. The team built a focused media list spanning hundreds of targets, crafted template pitches for each priority audience and conducted embargoed outreach to offer interviews with lead spokespeople. At launch, the survey generated more than 1.15 billion media impressions and was cited in 893 articles, including outlets like MSNBC, Axios, Reuters, USA Today and the Huffington Post.
Lil Nas X. In September, the team named the Grammy Award-winning artist as Trevor’s inaugural Suicide Prevention Advocate of the Year, securing more than 20 original articles in top-tier news, entertainment, music, consumer and cultural press. The announcement garnered 566 mentions, an estimated 570 million media impressions and more than $523,000 in estimated publicity value.

Office of Communications

Macon-Bibb County

New mayor tasks communications staff with cleaning up the town

The comms team in Macon-Bibb County launched a number of initiatives under its new mayor, including a warming center, a violence prevention program and a community cleanup effort. It’s a PR team of the Year (1–9 people) in Ragan’s Communicators of the Year and Rising Star Awards.

In January 2021, Macon-Bibb County welcomed its first new mayor in 13 years: Lester Miller, who placed a strong emphasis on communication. In April, the county’s communications staff increased from two to four, allowing it to expand and enhance its tactics and make room for more strategic planning.

These are some of the new initiatives the staff was tasked with supporting, all while managing its routine communications duties:

Brookdale Warming Center. This 24-hour shelter was designed for people experiencing homelessness or those without adequate heat. Because of the comms team’s effort, more than 700 people have been served at the center, and more than $170,000 in donations have been raised for its operation. Tens of thousands of items like sheets, pillows, toiletries, drinks, bags, clothing items and more have been donated. Once a temporary facility, the center has become so important to the community that it’s becoming permanent.

Macon Violence Prevention. A multi-agency initiative was launched to reduce crime in the community, putting programs and supports in place to prevent future violent acts. Its goals were to engage partner agencies, solicit feedback from people on what specific neighborhoods and groups needed, and earn media coverage of the work being done. Hundreds of people attended the program’s kickoff announcement. More than 1,100 people attended 14 public forums, and 700 online surveys were submitted to help begin developing a strategic plan. More than $2 million has been allocated for community groups to help reduce and prevent violent crime.
Clean Streets Matter. A focused and collaborative effort to clean litter, debris and illegal dumps from neighborhoods, the goals were to increase the number of service requests by citizens, engage neighborhoods to hold their own cleanups and celebrate the partnerships and work. Since the launch, more than 200 neighborhood cleanups have been conducted, collecting nearly 200,000 pounds of debris. People have submitted nearly 5,000 service requests to help crews identify hot spots, and those crews have removed nearly 20 million pounds of trash and debris from streets, illegal dump sites, collection points and more.

Congratulations to Ragan's and PR Daily's Communicators of the Year & Rising Star Awards, Class of 2022!

Rising Stars, Class of 2022

Communicators & Teams of the Year, Class of 2022

Additional Trophies

Questions