You don’t delegate leadership.
We don’t delegate delivery.
Strategic communications that turn uncertainty into advantage.
Leaders with experience
Kevin
Jon
Matt
Chris
Artificial Intelligence
We apply AI to enhance your ability to manage business and to make sense of change, from tools to augment internal capabilities to broader scenario planning. Training and capacity building. Process review and redesign. New tools and tech capability.
Executive Positioning
It’s a skill for CEOs and senior leaders to explain strategy with clarity and in ways that inspire confidence. We craft the message and build your skills to deliver storylines that break through and advance business goals.
Data and Research
Testing is better than guessing. We apply data and primary research to inform your decisions, reduce business risk, optimize messaging, and gather insights to inform communications strategy and planning.
Narrative and Storytelling
We differentiate your company’s value with a narrative rooted in your business and brought to life with stories projected through the eyes and actions of your employees.
Reputation and Crisis
We strengthen your resilience to challenges and build long-term reputation strategies that promote growth and help avoid crises.
Change Management
Generational, cultural, and technology shifts are reshaping the workplace and how companies and employees meet customer expectations. We help you harness and reduce the risk of change.
Corporate Communications
Effective media relations and social engagement are rooted in advancing business goals. We are strategic in building firm-wide positioning.
Thought Leadership
To shape and claim a point of view on issues bigger than your business is indispensable to your reputation. From building brand loyalty to occupying a seat at the policy table, we give a voice to your viewpoint.
Market Strategy
We model the contours of your competitive landscape to identify your ‘white space,’ inform your decision-making, and define and articulate your strategy.
Eric Benderoff
I am an executive media trainer and a Professor of Practice at Michigan State University, where my research and teaching include emerging new media and disinformation.
Previously, I was a reporter and columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.
I bring the perspective of over 25 years of experience working in top-tier newsrooms and communications agencies, and as Principal of Benderoff Communications, which specializes in media training and message development for business leaders, rising talent, non-profit executives, and entrepreneurs who interact with media to maximize opportunities to best tell their stories.
My perspective on the media is from both ends of the interview process, asking the questions and preparing C-suite leaders. I deliver the skills to both answer questions with impact and control the conversation with a reporter – a powerful trick.
At Burson-Marsteller (now Burson), the global strategic communications firm, I guided hundreds of leaders at Fortune 500 firms, including Accenture, Bank of America, Ford, Nestle Purina and Special Olympics International As a Professor of Practice at Michigan State University, I teach strategic communications and is co-director of the university’s public relations summer study abroad program in London and Leuven, Belgium.
I am also a founding member of MSU’s Professional Advisory Board for the Advertising and Public Relations department.
Kevin Bubel
I founded Oakton to meet an increasing client need for an agile, all-senior communications partnership that’s proven by experience and cost-efficient by design.
I bring the perspective of three decades as a tier-one financial journalist, corporate executive, and agency leader with global responsibilities and extensive experience in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
I extend the boundaries and impact of communications as a true business partner—to see and tackle challenges differently, with advice and actions that drive change and generate business results.
I have been either the first-in-role or first-to-do for much of my career.
I founded and, for more than a decade, led the first board and C-suite advisory practice in Burson-Marsteller (now Burson), the world’s biggest strategic communications and PR agency, to lead through transformative change.
In-house at Mars Inc., I set purpose-driven corporate reputation strategies that led the company forward for a decade.
As head of Asia-Pacific communication at AVON Products, I aligned 10 countries with no common language or culture behind a shared turnaround strategy.
I also piloted Cathay Pacific Airways through the greatest challenges in its history, including SARS—when a public health emergency was not yet part of the crisis playbook.
As a journalist, I was an editor and bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg in Vietnam, during the country’s pivotal opening to international business.
Foremost, I am a dedicated husband and father—and a somewhat dedicated cyclist. Summiting the Col du Tourmalet remains top of my 'to-do' list.
Matt Collette
I am a digital transformation expert and technology leader, widely recognized for my work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, marketing, communications, and sales.
As CEO of Sequencr AI, I empower teams to harness the power of generative AI to drive innovation, improve performance, and scale transformation.
With 20 years in leadership roles working across the globe, I have helped Fortune 500 companies and some of the world’s top marketing and communications agencies—including Edelman—navigate digital and technological change.
I am credited with launching the first marketing campaign to integrate ChatGPT and, in the early days of generative AI, played a key role in helping companies design enterprise-wide change management programs, establish AI task forces, develop adoption roadmaps, and pilot AI-powered solutions.
At Sequencr AI, I direct the development and deployment of generative AI solutions designed to deliver strategic innovation and measurable business impact for marketing, communications, and sales functions.
Leveraging AI as a transformative force, Sequencr partners with leadership teams to accelerate growth trajectories, cultivate agile, future-ready workforces, and navigate organizational complexities with confidence.
Core services span custom enterprise AI models, structured change management initiatives, immersive training and enablement programs, and comprehensive strategy and planning for generative AI integration.
My work has been recognized by industry leaders and award programs including the Shorty Awards, Webby Awards, Content Marketing Awards, Digiday, CPRS ACE, and Creative Circle Awards. In 2021, I was named Innovator of the Year by PRovoke Media in its Asia-Pacific Innovator 25, honoring my contributions to advancing the communications industry.
I believe AI transformation is not just a technical challenge—it’s a leadership imperative. Guided by Lao Tzu’s insight, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” I am passionate about helping organizations take those first meaningful steps toward building agile, AI-enabled teams equipped for the future of work.
Sinead Duffy
I am a global communications, public affairs, reputation, and sustainability advisor. I’ve spent the past 25 years developing and delivering impactful communications and public affairs strategies, implementing reputation-building programmes, and empowering companies and C-Suite leaders in major multinational companies such as Bayer, MSD, and Sanofi to reach their business objectives.
At the intersection of strategic communications and sustainability, my expertise lies in amplifying the narratives of purpose-driven organizations to engage in strategic dialogue and thought leadership to build their reputations and visibility.
As an independent senior global advisor, I develop strategy and craft compelling stories that resonate in a time of unprecedented challenges. I support C-Suite leaders to raise their voices and engage in.
My insights in the energy, health, food, and agricultural sectors have been instrumental in shaping dialogues around the impact of innovation and collaboration for sustainability. My work involves synthesizing complex topics into engaging discourse and advocating for the environmental missions of cutting-edge organizations. Working in partnership with client companies, efforts are geared towards creating robust reputations and meaningful impacts in sustainability.
Passionate about building trust and delivering purpose-driven strategies, I help organisations enhance their reputational capital while ensuring sustainable growth and long-term stakeholder and shareholder value.
I have an educational background in psychology and communications and have completed the Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leadership Sustainability Leaders Programme and Saïd Business School at Oxford’s Women in Leadership course.
Siobhan Eke
Social impact isn’t a ‘nice-to-have’—it’s an advantageous business imperative.
I help organizations turn social impact from a compliance checkbox into a strategic advantage. With ESG under scrutiny and regulations tightening, companies can no longer afford to overlook the ‘S’ in ESG.
I work with forward-thinking organizations to unlock the commercial and strategic value of social impact.
My expertise spans stakeholder engagement from the C-suite to frontline teams, co-creating aligned strategies, delivering and embedding measurable, manageable goals that deliver tangible outcomes.
I don’t just design strategies—I help organisations shift mindsets, energise and upskill employees, and build movements that drive real change and GROWTH.
I support businesses, organizations, and leadership teams who want to:
- Move beyond ESG reporting to create real competitive advantage.
- Build and embed social impact strategies that drive business value.
- Engage employees, clients, and stakeholders in meaningful change.
- Align commercial success with long-term sustainability.
Done right, social value isn’t just about reporting or risk mitigation—it’s a huge opportunity: a driver of growth, investment resilience, and competitive advantage.
- In the music and media industry, I created MTV's global radio debut and built digital propositions that delighted both record labels and consumers.
- At The Prince’s Trust in the UK, I increased commercial income fivefold in my first year and launched new cultural initiatives that expanded impact.
- Co-created award-winning educational programmes that boosted brand reputation, drove revenue, empowered young people, and upskilled employees.
I spent the early part of my career in Japan, speak Japanese, and understand the business culture.
Richard Frank
I build, rebuild, and manage brands to reach high levels of audience loyalty and engagement. An advocate for outside-in thinking, I use consumer insights to fuel creative, strategic work that grows market share and inspires internal and external audiences.
As Vice President, Global Brand Development, for global investment management firm T. Rowe Price, I increased the effectiveness of global B2B and B2C brand development and activation across all business units in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.
Campaigns helped to increase qualified referrals to business unit websites by 98.5% and reduced bounce rates by 67.9%. Global cross-channel advertising delivered double-digit percentage growth in organic traffic to web properties and significant brand tracker increases in brand awareness. Its “Confident Conversations on Retirement” podcast reached the top 10% worldwide.
For 10 seasons, I directed strategic branding and creative execution for Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles, managing and maximizing the club’s annual $2.4 million advertising and media budget.
I led the team’s dramatic rebranding efforts, including new logos, uniforms, and brand style guides to achieve the MLB’s second-largest, year-over-year increase in merchandise sales in history (+89%), moving the team from 23rd to 6th in overall merchandise sales.
I brought the team’s creative advertising and media planning efforts in-house for improved efficiency and results, saving the club more than $300,000 annually.
Earlier, my rebranding of AccuWeather led to the company's five most profitable years in its 70+ year history, helping the weather media giant overtake The Weather Channel to become the world’s leading weather media brand.
I also bring my expertise into the classroom as adjunct faculty at both Penn State University and Towson University.
Gary Goldhammer
Great storytelling is audience-focused and channel-agnostic. That’s why I blend my experience in journalism, a love for all things digital, and storytelling to develop corporate and brand communications rooted in emotion and empathy, delivering results with passion and purpose.
Specialties include generative AI, LLM agents, and synthetic reality. Along with creative and integrated digital strategy, Web3 and crypto initiatives; story-driven content marketing and digital programs, consumer marketing, online community engagement, paid social and digital media partnerships, social media planning and execution, corporate communications, public affairs, global team management, and crisis communications.
My expertise connects content and digital marketing, branding and positioning, social media planning and execution, corporate communications, public affairs, executive thought leadership, and influencer engagement—as the content, digital strategy, and market leader for the world’s largest creative and communications agencies.
I work from end-to-end, delivering strategy and message development, driving ongoing content creation, publishing, and distribution.
Most recently in my agency career, I was Executive Vice President of the Digital Innovation Group at BCW, and before that US Creative Director at H+K Strategies, and Managing Director at Group SJR.
I helped Netflix launch its first social media channels and assisted with early content distribution deals. I worked with leadership at Adobe and eBay to start some of their first-ever social media marketing programs. I’ve created and executed content marketing initiatives for Ford and Mazda, as well as Walgreens, Bank of America, and many others.
Previously, I was a reporter for The Associated Press, United Press International, and Scripps-Howard Newspapers, among others; served as a newsroom editor; and authored books on the death penalty and the media industry. My first fiction novel, titled Zaria’s Gate, was published in 2017.
I don’t believe in ordinary, and I work every day to help others do the same.
Jonathan Kay
My passion is to advance new healthcare technologies that improve and extend lives and expand access, equity, and value.
I founded and lead Health Market Experts, LLC, to help clients understand complex markets, set strategies based on research, and implement them.
I advise C-level executives and senior management whose innovations are solving clinical and economic unmet needs in biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostics, artificial intelligence for healthcare, digital health, patient advocacy, nonprofits, and public health.
More broadly, I apply data and research to change management, business transformation, stakeholder analysis, communications research, channel and messaging strategies for awareness and education, identifying and influencing the influencers and motivating behavior change, public opinion polling, and market research.
Previously, I was Global Head of Healthcare at PSB Research, where I formed the healthcare practice and led it for a decade. PSB, part of WPP, is a global research and consulting firm that provides strategic counsel, messaging and communications strategy, and market research. I also served in executive roles at Kantar Health (now Cerner Enviza).
I mentor biotech, med tech, and health tech CEOs, advising on strategy and implementation for start-ups, for job creation, and economic development. I was a pioneer in the digital transformation of healthcare market research (with Jeremy Brody), bringing physician and payer surveys to life sciences brand managers.
I’ve a track record of success at the intersection of health and technology, including advising clients who are applying machine learning to enhance diagnostic imaging, employing robotic process automation to create administrative efficiencies, and creating digital solutions for remote monitoring that guide clinical decision making.
I also supported the development, launch, and commercialization of dozens of diagnostics and therapeutics in digital health, rare disease, oncology, cardiology, neurology, diabetes, obesity and metabolic conditions, and more.
I am a volunteer board member at the Brem Foundation to Defeat Breast Cancer and a volunteer mentor at the Maryland Tech Council’s acclaimed Venture Mentoring Services Program.
I completed the Executive Program on Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy at the MIT Sloan School of Management, earned a B.A. from Cornell, and a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Arielle Lapiano
I help companies and professionals become visible leaders to move ahead in their industry.
I elevate client visibility through strategic PR, media relations training, and presentation coaching, empowering AmLaw 100 partners, Fortune 500 executives, and startup founders to make their mark while staying true to their voice.
I bring C-suite experience and academic excellence to professional communication training. I led communications as Managing Director of Corporate Affairs at global law firm Paul Hastings, then drove messaging strategies as Chief Communications and Marketing Officer for a cryptocurrency company.
Now at Columbia University, I teach professionals how to command attention and accelerate their careers. From BigLaw to crypto to Ivy League classrooms, I have mastered what makes communication persuasive in today’s landscape.