This year's inductees into the PR News Hall of Fame are some of the communications industry's foremost thought leaders and innovative problem solvers. Their entire careers
have been marked by needle-pushing accomplishments that beg one question: What's next?
Ron Culp, Partner Managing Director, Ketchum Midwest
He may have a history of achievement in PR, but Ron Culp only has an eye for the future of the profession. As a partner and managing director of Ketchum Midwest, Culp
serves as a global corporate strategist and oversees agency operations in Chicago and Pittsburgh, but his true passion is serving as a mentor for aspiring young PR professionals--
something he believes is critical to the continued growth of the communications profession.
"Demand for quality PR professionals will continue to grow at a pace faster than most traditional professions," he says. "However, with nearly 35,000 students currently
pursuing PR degrees in the U.S., the industry will have difficulty absorbing all of these graduates. For those truly dedicated to the profession, it is critical for them to get
as much experience as possible through internships and PR-related volunteer projects."
Creating a Platform
This is exactly what Culp dedicates himself to in his spare time. In September
2008, he established a blog (http://www.culpwrit.com)
to "provide direction for individuals pursuing careers in PR." He uses the platform
as a forum for answering questions posed by students, offering advice on everything
from the job application process and building media-pitching skills to spotlighting
individual students' experience in PR internships and entry-level positions.
Sage Counsel
"Giving advice to students and young PR professionals is personally rewarding, and makes me wish the Internet existed when I began my career 40 years ago," says Culp--not that
a lack of Web-based career advice hindered his professional success. Prior to joining Ketchum in 2006, he made his mark in the world of corporate communications at organizations
including Sears, Roebuck and Co., Eli Lilly and Sara Lee Corp. But it was a mentor from his first job out of college that truly shaped Culp's career as a communicator, which is
perhaps the root of his current commitment to mentoring students.
"The best career advice I ever got came from a lobbyist friend in Albany who introduced me to my first corporate job at Eli Lilly," says Culp. "I was working for the New York
Assembly at the time. [My friend] told me to get out of politics and get a real job."
Harris Diamond, Worldwide CEO, Weber Shandwick
Lately the business world has been in a tailspin, with recent world events exacerbating the situation. The crisis has heightened the reputational risks that companies face and
that communications professionals are left to manage. This reality makes Harris Diamond, CEO of Weber Shandwick and the Constituency Management Group of the Interpublic Group of
Companies, a valuable asset to both the organizations that he oversees and the communications industry as a whole.
"It is an exciting time to be in PR. We have both an enormous opportunity and enormous responsibility," Diamond says. "The future of our profession, and the success of the
businesses we manage, is dependent on our ability to broaden our own perspectives and be more bold in our thinking."
Visionary Thinker
Diamond is well-equipped to be broad in his perspectives and bold in his thinking thanks to his past experiences consulting for political campaigns (not to mention getting MBA
and JD degrees). But it's the modern business environment, complicated by emerging digital communications platforms, stakeholder empowerment, globalization and turbulent
economies, that has provided Diamond with what he calls his greatest career accomplishment to date: "The successful integration of BSMG Worldwide and Weber Shandwick in 2000--
creating a collaborative culture and ultimately becoming what is now one of the leading public relations agencies in the world."
Successfully merging disparate corporate cultures while turning the organization around to be a PR powerhouse is certainly a career highlight, and it undoubtedly took a very
clear understanding of how the means to getting there would justify the end result. In other words, Diamond cites the ability to focus on your approach and objectives in any
initiative as the pre-qualifier for success, something he learned at his very first job.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
"I sold peanuts at Yankee Stadium in the late 1960s," he says. "On my first day, there I was, a New York City kid obsessed with the Yankees, standing there watching the game.
An older vendor said to me, 'If you came here to watch the game, it's a lot easier to get a bleacher ticket for a quarter than to lug around this stuff; if you came here to work,
understand why you're here.' That woke me up. What that vendor said had an impact on me--if you're here to work, focus on work."
Matt Gonring, Consultant, Gagen MacDonald
With more than 20 years on the corporate side of the fence behind him, Matt Gonring has his fair share of experience navigating turbulent business landscapes. Having held
communications positions at industries as challenging as airlines, accounting and healthcare, his expertise in carrying brands, reputations and even bottom lines through thick and
thin is indisputable. Among a few of his many accomplishments: developing a master brand model and centralized Web team for Baxter; managing communications around the Arthur
Andersen/Accenture arbitration; and managing communications around a prepackaged bankruptcy at USG Corp.--an achievement he cites as being among his proudest. All of this accrued
expertise led Gonring to his current professional incarnation: a consultant with strategic execution and employee engagement consultancy Gagen MacDonald.
Getting Engaged to Build Value
Charged with helping clients in the very industries he used to work in himself to enhance their leadership performance, manage crises and streamline employee engagement to
create value, Gonring places special emphasis on the latter activity, noting that employee and internal communications is no longer an afterthought, but a critical dimension of
business management. His commitment to building awareness of employee engagement's strategic value can be seen in the body of knowledge he has created through research and
authoring thought-leadership pieces, which connect employee engagement and customer loyalty as corollary drivers that increase business value.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Gonring says he finds his most rewarding professional experience to be developing the careers of others, which he does as a member of Northwestern University's Integrated
Marketing Communications faculty, a board member of the Arthur W. Page Society and as co-chair of the Institute for Public Relations.
Laura Kane, Second VP, External Relations, Aflac
Past experience has a way of determining career paths, which explains why Laura Kane, 2nd VP of external relations for Aflac, plays such a dynamic role at the insurance giant.
Her professional background includes a variety of unique roles and accomplishments: she was a TV producer; an ad agency exec for dot-com firms; a member of the team that started
ESPN; she played a role in improving relations between Japan and the United States; was involved in changing the Georgia state flag; and made business history by driving
communications at the first public company to give shareholders a "say on pay."
Stakeholders First
The latter achievement is a highlight of her tenure at Aflac, in which her communications plan prompted a coup de grace for the company and entire investor community (the
campaign won a PR News 2008 Platinum PR Award in the Financial Communications category). But all of these accomplishments come thanks to Kane's ability to adapt her skill
sets to the changing times.
"The pace at which information travels has dramatically increased," she says. "When I started, most people received their news from evening newscasts at predictable times and
intervals. Today, news is 24/7 and comes at us through alerts seconds after someone declares it news. This environment requires that I have a much better understanding of the
company I work for, the world I live in and the possible agenda of the reporter/blogger/video streamer."
Running the Marathon, Not the Sprint
Indeed, the media landscape has changed drastically with the proliferation of digital communications channels, making Kane's role as a media relations specialist all the more
relevant--and complex.
"PR is a marathon, not a sprint. [In the future,] our challenge as PR professionals will be to find ways to help companies develop guidelines and parameters that enable them to
have genuine and meaningful conversations between [all stakeholders]," Kane says, further underscoring the relevance of Aflac's move to give an influential but often challenging
stakeholder group--investors--control over an element of the company's reputation. "Regardless of the method used, public relations will always be about people communicating with
other people."
Linda Rutherford, VP, Communications/Strategic Outreach, Southwest Airlines
Her job description includes "guiding the efforts of media relations, employee communications, emergency response, emerging and multimedia, and legislative communications" --
not an unsubstantial to-do list for any executive. But Linda Rutherford, VP of communications and strategic outreach for Southwest Airlines, has absorbed enough responsibilities
for 10 people while (seemingly) effortlessly helping her company's brand and reputation take flight as Southwest's competitors repeatedly falter.
Tireless Dynamo
Rutherford's 16-year tenure at the airline has been marked by achievement after achievement, among the most notable being the company's oft-lauded Web presence that has served
as a textbook example of how companies should leverage digital communications platforms to connect with stakeholders, consumers and media (an audience she is familiar with, given
her past life as a journalist for the Dallas Times Herald). In this vein, Rutherford considers her greatest professional accomplishment to be one that broke down the
invisible barrier between corporate executives and "everyone else."
Going to the Small Screen
"My proudest moment came when our communications team got the green light to involve Southwest in the A&E TV series Airline," she says. "It was then that I realized
our capacity to help build brand awareness and to expose Southwest Airlines to new audiences wasn't limited to what I had considered traditional PR activities. From that point
on, I removed all boundaries on my thinking about how communications should engage. Our value proposition has been changing ever since."
Maximizing PR's Worth
Value is certainly something Rutherford has brought to Southwest, and to the communications profession as a whole. Her contribution to proving PR's worth to brand, reputation
and, ultimately, the bottom-line in the face of C-suite skepticism has helped elevate the discipline from a reactive press-release machine to a strategic, boardroom-worthy
function that can guide an organization through turbulent business climates.
"The public relations profession has seen so much change in terms of audiences fragmenting and new communications channels," Rutherford says. "I see a future where PR
professionals perfect their roles as facilitators of communication; we are no longer gatekeepers. PR professionals will continue to redefine their roles as communicators in ways
still not imagined."