Search Results for: purpose

Lexie Feterl is a communications strategist, storyteller and creative director with more than 13 years of experience helping organizations communicate with clarity, authenticity and purpose. After serving in executive marketing and communications leadership roles across the financial and nonprofit sectors, she now partners with organizations to develop communication strategies and story-driven content that strengthen culture, build trust and create meaningful connections.

Her work spans executive communications, internal communications, employer branding, change communications, and video storytelling. Whether advising leaders on organizational messaging, producing authentic visual stories or helping organizations navigate moments of change, Lexie believes communication is most powerful when it makes people feel seen, understood, and connected.

Susannah Sheppard leads Internal Brand & Culture at Virgin Voyages, where she helps shape the experience of a global Crew representing more than 70 nationalities across ships and shoreside teams around the world.

Her work is rooted in a distinctly Virgin belief: if you take care of your people first, everything else follows. At a company built around hospitality and experience, she believes culture should feel less like corporate programming and more like something people genuinely feel part of. She’s spent her career helping make that real. Her work spans employee experience, leadership communications, storytelling, recognition, live experiences, and culture strategy, all designed to make Crew feel connected to the business, to each other, and to the purpose behind the work.

Over the past several years, Susannah has helped scale Virgin Voyages through rapid growth, including the launch of two ships, and the onboarding of more than 2,400 Crew members globally. She has evolved the company’s internal communications and engagement ecosystem, built culture and recognition programs, and created leadership experiences designed to strengthen trust, visibility, and connection at scale. She believes your reputation doesn’t start with your marketing. It starts with your people.

Before joining Virgin Voyages, Susannah spent several years at communications consultancy Ketchum, where she worked across the company’s PR, marketing, and branding initiatives. Earlier in her career, she worked in entertainment and consumer communications, experiences that continue to shape her belief that people rarely remember every message, but they always remember how something made them feel.

Originally from the UK, Susannah now lives in Fort Lauderdale, although there’s a good chance she’s currently somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

With nearly three decades of experience in corporate affairs, Jessica Adelman has solidified her place as a visionary leader in the field of communications and reputation management. As senior vice president of corporate affairs for Mars Wrigley North America, she has demonstrated a relentless commitment to social impact and inclusivity.

In 2024, Adelman led Dove Chocolate’s AI-powered “Mom Experience Translator,” a campaign that helped mothers translate their parenting skills into job-relevant skills, addressing the bias against applicants with resume gaps, particularly those who took time off to raise children. This initiative embodied Dove Chocolate’s mission to uplift women to drive change in the workforce.

Adelman also led Skittles in creating partnerships and campaigns that supported the LGBTQ+ community at a time when many brands were retreating from DEI initiatives. Under her leadership, Skittles was hailed as a brand that got it right and stood firm in its commitment to social justice while engaging a loyal customer base.

Her passion for driving corporate responsibility is further evidenced by her role in developing the M&M’s FUNd Advisory Council, ensuring that the brand’s messaging remains inclusive and fun and promotes a culture of belonging. The 2023 Super Bowl campaign that Adelman oversaw garnered 25.2 billion earned media impressions, underscoring the power of inclusive, culturally relevant storytelling.

Adelman’s leadership includes time at Syngenta and Kroger, where she spearheaded sustainability efforts and corporate reputation management, elevating both organizations on key reputation rankings.

An advocate for inclusivity and youth engagement, Adelman also serves on national impact committees and teaches at Northwestern University, where she is shaping the future of corporate communications with a focus on purpose, impact and inclusivity.

Tony Kihl is an Internal Communications leader with a passion for helping organizations connect strategy, culture, and people through clear, meaningful storytelling. With experience across global organizations including LHH, Apple, and Dell Technologies, Tony has led communications that support transformation, executive visibility, employee engagement, brand activation, and large-scale business priorities.

In his current role at LHH, Tony partners with leaders across business to bring strategic initiatives to life through thoughtful messaging, internal campaigns, town halls, leadership communications, and colleague engagement. His work focuses on making complex information easier to understand, helping teams see how their work connects to the bigger picture, and creating communications that feel human, practical, and purposeful.

Tony also teaches communication and leadership courses at the University of Purdue, bringing his real-world experience into the classroom to help students strengthen their interpersonal, professional, and leadership communication skills. Whether supporting executives, engaging employees, or guiding students, Tony is passionate about the power of communication to build trust, create clarity, and move people forward together.

Courtney Soltero is the Director of Internal Communications at Jackson Lewis, P.C., an Am Law 100 law firm with 60 offices across the country. She is a strategic communications professional passionate about all things employee comms. She has a talent for aligning teams across the organization in support of shared goals, and for transforming fragmented ideas into sophisticated, polished deliverables that drive the business forward. She centers her work on a people-first approach which, above all else, seeks to empower employees to do their jobs efficiently, effectively and with a strong sense of purpose.

Chelsea Mankowski is a people-first communications strategist and change leader who has spent more than a decade redefining what it means to build a connected, engaged workforce. With roots in corporate storytelling and executive communications, Chelsea has been the driving force behind cultural transformations at well-recognized organizations – from MAPCO Express, a 365-location convenience retailer, where she earned Top Workplace USA recognition two years running, to Ascension Saint Thomas where she guided 15,000 employees through one of the most complex crisis communications challenges a healthcare system can face.

Currently, she serves as Director of Talent and Engagement at SavATree, where she is transforming a fragmented, dispersed workforce into a unified team through purposeful systems, processes, and people-first strategies that synchronize work and foster operational excellence. Chelsea also brings AI into her practice to accelerate results and eliminate the friction that slows teams down – proving that the right tools, paired with authentic human connection are unstoppable.

A C-Store Decisions 40 Under 40 honoree and Belmont University alumna, Chelsea is a sought-after voice on internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership development. She believes that the most powerful thing any organization can do is make its people feel heard, and she has built a career proving it

Monique Kelley is a trusted, purpose-driven communications expert, serving as a professor (Boston University), published author and fractional (interim) leader for Fortune 50 and global biopharmaceutical corporations seeking a strategic corporate, product or executive comms head to advance business objectives and alleviate their headaches. She is uniquely positioned to address client challenges first-hand having been in senior leadership overseeing comms for a US COO and two business divisions simultaneously at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and, prior to that, serving as an SVP/Client Experience Lead at top agency Weber Shandwick.

Professor Kelley wrote the book (literally) on effective networking, “Redefining Networking: How to Lead with Your Unique Value,” published by Routledge (Dec. 2025) and an Amazon #1 Best Seller for Business Ethics.  She’s currently on a book tour and has been featured in the media, including FOX 5 D.C., FOX 10 Phoenix and Denver’s KOA 850 AM and 94.1 FM. Monique is also a Founding Member of CHIEF, the largest membership-based network for women C-suite and executives.

Monique has built a strong network that she taps into for her consulting, referrals for her former coworkers and opportunities for her students and industry peers. At BU, she teaches the first and only Career Readiness course within the College of Communication. She teaches students and professionals alike her approach to effective networking and has facilitated “lead with your value” workshops for corporations and professional organizations.

Monique is a NJ native and started her career in NYC, providing product marketing comms for clients, including Pfizer, J&J, Lilly, Roche and GSK. She is a 2x PRNEWS Top Women in PR award recipient, won numerous other awards for her leadership and work and serves as a judge for them as well.

Brian Brooks builds narratives that move people. For more than two decades, he has helped public agencies, nonprofits big and small, and global transportation hubs communicate with clarity, confidence, and purpose. His career has been built on a simple belief: when organizations communicate well, they build trust, strengthen communities, and create lasting change.

Most recently, he had served as the Director of PR and Communications for JPS Health Network in Fort Worth, TX, where he led efforts to reshape how Tarrant County views and engages with its public health system. His team oversaw everything from executive communications to social media to capital construction storytelling for the network’s $1 billion master facility plan.

Before joining JPS, Brian spent several years at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, most recently serving as Assistant Vice President of Communications. There, he led strategic messaging for the third busiest airport in the world, guiding digital transformation, launching major infrastructure communication initiatives, and supporting executive leaders during a period of rapid growth and modernization.

Brian’s background bridges public health, nonprofit leadership, development, and community engagement. His roles at MHMR of Tarrant County strengthened his expertise in communicating complex, high-impact human services work—skills he first developed in earlier roles with the American Heart Association, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Leukemia Texas, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

A graduate of Arizona State University, Brian remains deeply connected to community leadership. He serves as President of the ASU Alumni DFW Chapter, sits on multiple boards, and continues to mentor future leaders in communications and public service.

 Flora is a strategic communications and marketing leader with 12 years of experience shaping global brands, amplifying and safeguarding corporate reputation, and cultivating connected, purpose-driven cultures.

She currently leads the Canadian Corporate Communications team at Novartis, a global medicines company with a bold purpose: reimagining medicine to improve and extend lives. In this role, she drives initiatives that amplify Novartis’ external presence through digital strategy, public relations and executive visibility, while overseeing internal communications and engagement programs that inspire collaboration and meaning for employees across the country.

A trusted advisor to the leadership team, Flora brings deep expertise in navigating complex, matrixed environments, guiding organizations through transformation, and inspiring them to embrace what’s next.

She has experience working within publicly traded companies, start-ups and NGOs across diverse industries, including pharmaceuticals/health, manufacturing, and education technology.

 

Nicole Williams is the VP of Brand at Kate Farms and a seasoned creative brand leader with more than 15 years of experience across fashion, lifestyle and CPG. Her work sits at the intersection of design, storytelling, strategy, and brand marketing, with a focus on building purposeful, people-centered brands.

Her career includes brand and creative roles at ByHeart, Harry’s Inc., Mack Weldon, The Absolut Company, NET-A-PORTER, and Nasty Gal, where she helped define and evolve brand identity, creative expression, and go-to-market strategy across multiple stages of growth. Nicole has lived and worked in New York, London, and Los Angeles, and has also held extended professional stints in Stockholm, which together shaped her global perspective on how brands earn trust and behave with intention. She holds a BFA in Design and an MA in Brand Strategy.

Nicole currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, where she leads brand, creative, and communications at Kate Farms, a mission-led medical nutrition company focused on improving access to high-quality, plant-based clinical nutrition.