media-relations
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Catherine Riedel Makes Complicated Companies Understandable
Across three decades, the Chicago communications executive has translated dense technology, corporate change and public-sector ambition into language people can actually use. Her method begins with a deceptively unfashionable question: should we do this at all?
Mark Kornblau Has Spent a Career Making Big Institutions Legible
From campaign planes to the United Nations, JPMorgan and NBC News, Mark Kornblau learned that the hardest communications job is not producing more messages. It is finding the one story an institution can keep proving.
The Brand Voice Behind Wall Street's Quiet Powerhouse
He built brands for Apple, Cisco, and CNET before deciding the most interesting marketing job left was making an investment bank memorable. Inside the long game of Scott Waltz.
Jennifer Rankin Byrne
Jennifer Rankin Byrne is the founder and principal of MERIT Coaching Communications Consulting in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she coaches leaders and communicators to sharpen their voice, build executive presence, and lead with authenticity. She brings more than two decades of communications leadership, including years as Vice President of Corporate Communications at PBS and earlier roles at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, AOL, and Turner Broadcasting/CNN. Her practice blends real-world corporate experience with a curiosity-led, customized coaching approach summed up in her tagline: 'Communicate with purpose. Grow with confidence.'
Sarah Kissko Hersh
Sarah Kissko Hersh is a public relations and communications leader with more than 25 years of agency and brand experience, and the founder of Type A Consultancy, a communications and leadership practice based just outside New York City. A Top 2% LinkedIn creator with a following in the tens of thousands, she works as a PR coach, trainer, and fractional communications advisor, helping executives and teams get unstuck, tell simpler stories, and communicate with clarity and kindness.
Caitlin Epstein
Caitlin Epstein is VP of Corporate Communications at Twilio, the cloud communications platform powering customer engagement for businesses worldwide. Since joining in 2015, she helped navigate Twilio through its IPO and became one of tech PR's sharpest voices on human-centered storytelling - best known for turning a CEO's breakfast burrito delivery into a Forbes-covered $3 billion acquisition narrative.
Hassan Al Shouli
Hassan Al Shouli is a senior communications and strategic business executive at Microsoft's CEMA (Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) President Office, based in the UAE. With nearly two decades of career experience, he has shaped Microsoft's presence across the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and broader MEA region through executive communications, multi-channel campaigns, and leadership engagement. Before Microsoft, he spent years in the fast-moving MENA digital market at dubizzle and analytics consultancies. He holds an MBA from Cass Business School (now Bayes) and a BSc in Electronics, Engineering, and Communications from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport.
Rob Shilkin
Rob Shilkin is Vice President of Global Communications and Public Affairs at Google, overseeing one of the world's most complex corporate communications functions. A former antitrust lawyer from Australia who trained at Clayton Utz and Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Shilkin brings rare legal-policy fluency to Google's communications challenges - including antitrust litigation, AI debates, content moderation, and online advertising policy. His team handles approximately 2,000 issues per year. He took overall leadership of Google's communications in 2023, reporting to Chief Marketing Officer Lorraine Twohill, and has been recognized in Provoke Media's Influence 100 2025 rankings.
Tom Phillips
Tom Phillips spent 18 years at Microsoft rising to VP of Communications, where he led PR strategy for the company's advertising business, managed media around major acquisitions, guided CEO communications, and drove narratives through cultural transformations. With over four decades of total PR experience, he left Microsoft in late 2024 to launch Upstream Communications, a Seattle-based strategic communications firm focused on helping clients tell their stories with precision and purpose.
Natalie Miyake
Natalie Miyake is Partner, Marketing at Sequoia Capital, one of the world's most storied venture capital firms. A seasoned communications strategist who grew up in Japan and studied in Madrid before working in New York and San Francisco, she shapes how Sequoia tells its story to the world. With a career spanning crisis PR at Brunswick Group, corporate communications at Twitter during its most turbulent acquisition years, and nearly a decade steering Sequoia's voice across its portfolio of unicorns and breakout companies, Miyake brings a rare mix of global perspective and Silicon Valley fluency to the intersection of finance and narrative.