Business Fluency Boot Camp for Communicators
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- Manage and interpret financial statements, and develop and oversee organizational budgets
- Speak the language of business and finance, and use financial tools to evaluate trends
- Master the business planning process and differentiate between a strategic and an operational plan—and understand their relationship to communication planning and activities
- Create strategic plans that deliver profitability and demonstrate your value to top leaders—and see case studies and examples of such plans
- Understand how the business environment has shifted due to COVID-19 and what impact it may have on economic success—or failure
Lawrence J. Parnell, M.B.A., is an award-winning PR professional and academic. An associate professor at George Washington University, Parnell has been director of its master's degree program in strategic public relations for 10 years, having built it into one of the nation's best-known and most-admired programs within the discipline. He is also an adjunct professor of strategic communications at GWU School of Business. He operates Parnell Communications, a strategic communications and leadership training advisory firm, advising government, corporate and nonprofit organizations on executive development and strategic communications.
Karen Vahouny's career has included corporate and agency experience at the most senior level, having counseled top-level executives on a range of issues. She was a founding partner of Qorvis Communications, a startup that grew to become one of the top five independently owned U.S. PR firms. Her focuses there included investor relations, corporate communication and financial communication. In 2012, Vahouny embarked on a new career as an entrepreneur and professor, starting her own consulting firm and joining the adjunct faculty of Marymount University and George Washington University. She teaches the business/finance class in GWU's Strategic PR graduate program.
A nationally recognized expert on business literacy for strategic communicators, Dr. Matt Ragas is a tenured associate professor in the College of Communication at DePaul University in Chicago, USA. He has served as academic director of DePaul’s award-winning PR and advertising graduate program. Matt is co-author with colleague Ron Culp of the forthcoming book, Business Acumen for Strategic Communicators: A Primer (Emerald Publishing, 2021). He is the author, co-author or co-editor of four other books, including Mastering Business for Strategic Communicators (Emerald Publishing, 2018) and Business Essentials for Strategic Communicators (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), which have been adopted by top college and university public relations programs.