Five Steps to a Winning Communications Audit How to prove your value—and improve your messaging

Jim Ylisela is Co-founder and Senior Partner of Ragan Consulting Group. He is an award-winning veteran Chicago journalist and a former publisher of Ragan.com. He brings more than 30 years of experience in writing, editing, communications research and consulting. Ylisela has designed and organized newsrooms for many companies and organizations, including Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where he served as a faculty member and co-director of Medill News Service from 1988 to 2001. He works with communicators to create brand journalism news sites, organize and train writers and editors and restore reporting (and creative storytelling) to internal and external communications.

Katrina Gill is the owner of Gill Research LLC and an affiliate consultant at Ragan Consulting Group. She has 20 years of diverse research experience, from the planning and development of projects through the presentation of results and recommendations for action. She is an experienced manager of both qualitative and quantitative research projects in many fields, ranging from employee to consumer research, and specializes in communication audits. She is a formally trained statistician, focus group moderator and in-depth interviewer. Katrina’s academic background is in research methodology, and she completed post-graduate study on a doctoral (Ph.D.) track in clinical psychology. In her free time, Katrina likes to spend time with her family, volunteer at the local animal shelter, travel to new places and cheer on the Chicago Bears.

Mark Hendrickson is director of strategic communications and PR at Moffitt Cancer Center. He previously was director of PR and marketing at Geisinger Health System, where he was responsible for developing, leading and executing public relations, employee communications, media, marketing and community outreach strategies. He's an accomplished public relations professional who has successfully developed communications strategies and platforms designed to engage the mind, touch the heart and elicit action.

Guillermo Fuentes is assistant vice president of internal communications at Southern New Hampshire University. He tries to inject creativity in everything he writes, produces and develops. He's passionate about connecting people to information that matters, making advocates out of employees and trying to bring the human side out of even the most technical note. His specialties include developing an employee media strategy, media calendar maintenance and content road mapping, and creating engaging employee experiences. He uses his multimedia background to inform, engage and empower employees.