Rose McKinney, APR

Combining industry leadership and insight with her dedication to helping companies tap the powerful potential of public relations, Rose McKinney is as passionate about implementing PR campaigns as she is about the PR business itself.

Throughout her career, Rose has been on both the new-business and client-service side of a number of leading PR firms. She has led integrated marketing communications, branding and positioning development and clients and colleagues recognize her for providing strategic direction and counsel for a roster that includes Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller, local entrepreneurial organizations. Over the years, Rose has come to learn (both from successes … and a few mistakes) what makes for successful client-agency relationships.

Prior to partnering with Risdall Advertising to form Risdall McKinney Public Relations in 2006, Rose was vice president at Karowski & Courage Public Relations, an Omnicom affiliate. Her accomplishments at the agency included spearheading a new-business development program that helped grow the agency to one of the Twin Cities’ top ten, and developing a client-service initiative that earned Karwoski & Courage its reputation for excellence in client service. Rose’s dedication and leadership also earned her the Karwoski & Courage “Employee of the Year” award from her colleagues.

Adding to her leadership experience, Rose headed the public relations department at the Foley Group (formerly Foley Sackett). She was responsible for integrating PR with advertising account service, creative, media, traffic, production and accounting on all levels of marketing communications planning, in addition to providing public relations counsel. Rose has provided freelance public relations counsel for many leading Twin Cities’ agencies, too. She started her career at Miller Meester Public Relations.

Rose has achieved much recognition from the marketing and communications industry during her nearly 20 years working in public relations. In the last ten years, she and her teams have been honored with more than 50 coveted awards. Work for “Continental Harmony”, a national millennium celebration for the American Composers Forum, received a Superior Achievement in Branding & Reputation (SABRE) award, a national Silver Anvil Award of Excellence and “Best of Show” honors by the Minnesota PRSA Classics. Work with the Twin Cities Shriners Hospital for Children was honored with a SABRE award and named PR Week magazine’s health care campaign of the year in 2004.

Rose also teaches public relations courses at Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. She has received the Accredited Public Relations (APR) designation from the Universal Accreditation Board in 2002 and currently serves on the board of directors as president-elect of the Minnesota Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

In 2006, Rose was named one of 25 Women to Watch by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

A graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, Rose moved to the Twin Cities in 1987. She and her husband have three children.