MEDIA MYTHS & REALITIES

Bill Agee
Marketing Director, IKEA U.S.
Conshohocken, Pa.

Bill has more than two decades of experience in marketing and communication. Prior to becoming marketing director for IKEA in the U.S., he served as the Swedish retailer’s global advertising manager, based in Helsingborg, Sweden. He also was previously managing director of IKEA Communications in Sweden.

Bill began his career with IKEA in 1993 as an advertising manager and later worked as the deputy manager of an IKEA store in New Jersey. Before IKEA, he spent 10 years as an account manager in the advertising industry in New York City.

IKEA is a Ketchum client.

Allison Costello
Vice President, Regional Media Strategist, Ketchum
Pittsburgh

With more than 12 years of experience in pubic relations, Allison provides senior-level media counsel to clients across the Ketchum network. Her expertise in media strategy, planning and pitching has helped her achieve hundreds of placements in top-tier media outlets, ranging from The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press to Good Morning America and ESPN’s Cold Pizza. Allison has a varied background but primarily works in the agency’s Global Food & Nutrition Practice, where she has served such clients as Del Monte Foods, H.J. Heinz Company, ConAgra Foods, Domino’s Pizza and Horizon Organic.

Prior to joining Ketchum, Allison was a PR manager for Rite Aid Corporation, where she also served as the executive director of the Rite Aid Women’s Health Foundation. She began her career as the director of communications at the Pennsylvania Gas Association, where she also served as a lobbyist with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Jean Drummond
President and CEO, HCD International
Lanham, Md.

Jean is co-founder and president of HCD International (HCDI), a management consulting firm that provides “technology-enabled” services in a range of areas, including marketing, public relations and community outreach. Her firm has a particular expertise in healthcare and, among other things, has designed and successfully executed a public relations campaign to prevent the closure of academic healthcare programs serving minorities.

Jean advises and serves both public and private organizations. Current and former clients include the U.S. Departments of Transportation, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA Goddard Space Center, Verizon, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Walter Reed Hospital and the Greater Washington Urban League. Jean also has been the host of her own television program called Gems of Vision.

Ketchum currently serves as a sub-contractor for HCDI.

David Gallagher
Senior Partner, EMEA, and CEO, London, Ketchum
London

As chief executive of Ketchum’s London office, David oversees all account service and business support functions for the agency’s U.K. operations. He also participates on a team of agency heads to provide coordinated PR services in European domestic markets and internationally across the EU region and beyond. Globally, David is a senior partner in Ketchum’s worldwide management, a capacity in which he counsels international clients on matters related to product communications, issues management and third-party advocacy.

David serves on the management boards of the Public Relations Consultants Association and the International Communications Consultants Organisation, and is active in various charitable causes in London.

Richard Griffiths
Head of Strategic Media, Ketchum London
London

Richard worked for BBC News for 13 years in a number of broadcasting roles on radio and television. These included working as a business correspondent for BBC Breakfast News and Business Breakfast on BBC TV, as well as BBC News 24 and BBC World. He also worked as a New York business reporter in 1997 covering TV and radio and at various times as a business presenter on BBC World Service radio, Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 4’s Today program.

Before joining Ketchum in 2007, Richard was head of broadcast and new media for the accounting and consulting firm KPMG. At Ketchum, he provides media counseling to clients and is developing Ketchum London’s media training offering. Clients have included Towers Perrin, Nokia Siemens Networks, Kodak, P&G Pharmaceuticals, Roche, Seeds of Change and KPMG.

Dave Kissel
Partner, Zócalo Group
Chicago

With more than 20 years of accomplishments as both an agency and client leader, Dave has helped achieve enterprise growth for companies of all sizes through marketing innovation. He is currently a partner at Zócalo Group, Omnicom Group’s only word-of-mouth marketing agency, where his clients include DuPont, State Farm Insurance, Hewlett-Packard and Midway Games.

Before joining Zócalo in July 2008, Dave worked for DDB Chicago, where he led that agency’s two largest businesses, State Farm and McDonald’s. He helped design and craft marketing strategy, brand advertising, interactive communications and direct marketing solutions.

Charlene Li
Co-Author, Groundswell
San Francisco

Charlene is a co-author, along with Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff, of the widely acclaimed book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Techonologies. She also is an independent thought leader and analyst on emerging technologies, with a specific focus on social technologies, interactive media, and marketing. She discusses these topics on her blog, The Altimeter.

Previously, Charlene was a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. Prior to that, she spent five years in online and newspaper publishing with The San Jose Mercury News and Community Newspaper Company. She was also a consultant with Monitor Group in Boston and Amsterdam.

Fernando Neves
Director of Ketchum Interactive Communications, Ketchum Estratégia
São Paulo, Brazil

Fernando helped launch the Ketchum Interactive Communications division for Ketchum Estratégia in Brazil. The group serves clients through the development of new media tools, blogosphere monitoring and relationships with online influencers. Clients include P&G, LG Electronics, Oracle, Warner, Dow Chemical, Danone and Reckitt-Benckiser, among others.

Fernando also is an account director, responsible for the complete supervision of designated accounts. His experience includes the planning and coordination of campaign launches, products and services, media training, media audits, press tours, press conferences, and crisis management. Before joining Ketchum, he worked for companies such IBM Brasil, Elgin Electronics, and Westin International, among others. He has also worked for numerous publications, such as Jornal do Brasil, Época magazine, Computer Reseller News Brasil, Information Week Brasil, and IDG Computerworld Brasil, and the Internet Portals iG and Globo.com, covering subjects related to retail, business, Internet and technology.

James Peters
Vice President, Corporate Group Manager, Ketchum
Atlanta

James provides strategic counsel and media relations support on a variety of corporate communication issues and leads Ketchum South’s corporate and media practice.

He has in-depth experience developing internal and external communication strategies, issues and crisis management, and business-to-business and business-to-consumer campaigns focusing on the transportation, energy and financial services sectors. He also has counseled clients on corporate social responsibility campaigns and worked with various stakeholders including NGOs, regulators and analysts. Current clients include FedEx, FPL and IBM.

Andrew Rasiej
Social Entrepreneur and Founder of Personal Democracy Forum
New York

Andrew is the founder of Personal Democracy Forum, which is both an annual conference and a community Web site focusing on and promoting the intersection of politics and technology. In the 2004 U.S. presidential race, he served as chairman of the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Council, and in 2005 he ran for public advocate of New York City in the Democratic primary on a platform to bring low-cost wireless Internet access to all New Yorkers.

He writes a biweekly column for Politico.com and serves as senior technology advisor for the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that focuses on using technology to expose corruption in Congress and facilitates citizen engagement.

Andrew also has founded or co-founded numerous other organizations, including MideastWire.com, a Beirut-based news service that translates opinion pieces from newspapers in Arab countries, Iran and the Arab media Diaspora and makes them available over the Web to English-speaking governments, corporations, media and educational institutions.

David Rockland
Partner, Managing Director, Global Research, Consulting and Interactive Communications, Ketchum

David is a Partner at Ketchum and Managing Director of the Ketchum Global Research Network. He is responsible for overseeing the agency’s research products and services, as well as developing innovative approaches to public relations research and measurement for clients around the globe.

He previously owned The Rockland Group, a firm that specialized in environmental issues management and marketing, which he sold to Roper Starch Worldwide in 1998. He managed the environmental and public relations practices for Roper Starch Worldwide before joining Ketchum in 2000. David also has a breadth of experience in public policy, including work in previous positions with BHP Copper and Times Mirror Magazines.

Nicholas Scibetta
Partner and Global Director, Global Media Network, Ketchum
New York

As global director of Ketchum's Global Media Network, Nicholas provides senior strategic media-planning counsel and placement for clients across the agency's network. He founded and serves as editor of In The Know, a national media-placement newsletter, and ITK NewsFlash, which combines comprehensive analysis of sought-after media outlets with top-of-the-day news items.

Nicholas also is a co-author of the Ketchum/USC-Annenberg 2006 and 2007 Media Myths and Realities surveys.

Jerry Swerling
Director, Strategic Public Relations Center, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California
Los Angeles

Jerry serves as a professor of professional practice and director of public relations studies at the University of Southern California, where he is responsible for the management of the undergraduate and graduate programs in public relations, including curriculum design, faculty organization, and student mentoring. He is director of the USC Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center, which produces the annual PR Generally Accepted Practices Study.

He also is principal of Swerling & Associates, a PR management consultancy he formed in 1998 to help corporate clients solve a wide variety of organizational and strategic communications challenges. Jerry is a co-author of the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Media Myths and Realities studies.

Eryn Taylor
Senior Project Manager, Ketchum Global Research Network
New York

Eryn is a senior project manager with the Ketchum Global Research Network. She works on a variety of research initiatives intended to inform strategy and evaluate efforts, and she helped lead the research team for Media Myths & Realities in 2007 and 2008.

Eryn participates in the development, management, implementation and analysis of various qualitative and quantitative research projects. Her clients include Weight Watchers, Absolut, Kodak and Hyatt.

Gur Tsabar
Vice President and New Media Strategist, Ketchum
New York

As vice president and new media strategist for Ketchum, Gur brings years of experience in building communities online and offline, having straddled both the new-media and political worlds in New York City.

Gur currently publishes Room Eight, one of New York's most heavily read political community blogs – which he co-founded. Prior to that, Gur ran an innovative civic engagement campaign to represent the residents of Manhattan's east side on the New York City Council – an effort that earned him the endorsements of The New York Times, The New York Daily News and The Amsterdam News.

Gur offers strategic counsel to a wide array of clients across the Ketchum network – including Nokia, FedEx, Kodak, IKEA, Best Buy and others – helping each to optimize its use of new and consumer-generated media channels in ways that meaningfully engage their various stakeholder communities.

Tom Watson
Deputy Dean of Education and Reader in Communications, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Poole, Dorset, U.K.

Dr. Tom Watson joined The Media School in January 2007. He teaches corporate public relations to final year B.A. public relations students and other units on masters programs. He also is an active researcher, with a focus on professionally important topics such as measurement and evaluation, reputation management, and issues management. Previously, he was associate professor in communication and head of the School of Communication at Charles Sturt University in Australia.

Before entering academic life, Tom ran a successful public relations consultancy in Winchester for 18 years and was chairman of the U.K.’s Public Relations Consultants Association from 2000 to 2002. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1995 from Nottingham Trent University for research into models of evaluation in public relations. With Paul Noble, he wrote Evaluating Public Relations, which was published in 2005 by Kogan Page and has also been translated into Russian, Korean and Japanese.

Watson is a co-author of the 2008 Media Myths & Realities study.