University of Washington, University of California Berkeley

University of Washington

Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington

University of California, Berkeley

Skills: Strategic Partnership Management · Leadership Development · Marketing Strategy · Strategic Planning

Freelance

Strategic Marcom Consultant 

Served as inaugural Head of Marketing for Rippleworks - a growing social impact organization dedicated to helping scaling social ventures thrive.  Managed all aspects related to building the marketing team and a strategic foundation for marcom and internal communications initiatives.  Key accomplishments:

Team Leadership 
- Built a 3-person marketing team.  Hired a marketing manager and marketing associate, established clear roles and responsibilities and collaborated on priority setting.  Provided leadership and mentorship relative to delivering against OKRs and skill-building.  

Marketing & Communications Strategy 
- Established marketing OKRs focused on increasing awareness and brand equity for venture customers, establishing Rippleworks as a thought leader and fostering an inspiring internal culture.  
- Drove initiative to codify the Rippleworks theory of change and approach to impact measurement.  
- Initiated venture relationship and engagement strategy.  Launched annual survey to capture insights from venture customers to better understand perceptions regarding Rippleworks value proposition and key customer needs to inform the evolution of Rippleworks' product/service and engagement strategy.   
- Event management.  Led strategy and oversaw project management for Rippleworks’ presence at the Skoll World Forum and SOCAP.  

Internal Communications 
- Designed and produced internal events.  Launched quarterly One Rippleworks Days to help the team feel informed, included and inspired around the Rippleworks mission, the work of our venture customers, key organizational priorities and accomplishments and the collective wisdom of our team.  
- In collaboration with executive team, overhauled organizational values to better reflect the cultural priorities of our growing and more diverse team. 
- Established best practices for internal communications to maximize understanding, engagement and inspiration around new organizational developments.

Rippleworks

Head of Marketing

Managed all communications and advocacy initiatives for a family foundation with the mission to improve lives through invention.  Programs aim to promote systems change in education (K-12 and Higher Ed) in the U.S. and entrepreneurial networks in the U.S., India and East Africa.  

Strategic communications.  Overhauled communications and digital channel strategy to increase storytelling and audience engagement opportunities.  Deliverables include new messaging architecture; new website; updated collateral; more strategic approach to social media and introduction of the Invention Notebook on Medium. Lead executive communications including writing bylined articles, keynote speeches and panel presentation remarks.  Serve as strategic advisor to grantees to maximize their own strategic communications and marketing resources and outcomes.  Directly manage team of five.  

Brand platform development.  Managed brand identity design and development of new websites, messaging platforms, strategic communications plans and visual assets to support Foundation communities of practice strategy.  Results can be found at inventioneducation.org and engineeringforoneplanet.org  

Partnership management.  Manage partnerships with high-profile media outlets, including PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio (NPR) and The Conversation, and advocacy organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Society for Science & the Public.  

Cross-divisional team leadership.  Collaborate with leadership team on Board communications and outreach to advisory committee members.  Member of the Foundation’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee.

The Lemelson Foundation

Communications Officer

Managed all fundraising, marketing and communications activities for global women’s health NGO working in East Africa and Latin America.  

Strategic communications.  Established strategic communications platform to more effectively position mission in the context of supply chain sustainability investments, an imperative for growing corporate partner support.  Developed new positioning and messaging architecture, executive presentation, digital channel strategy and annual strategic marketing communications plan.  Managed all agency resources.   

Fundraising.  Diversified funding from single channel to multi-channel model.  Expanded corporate giving program, implemented foundation grants and major gifts programs and established cause-marketing and digital initiatives that resulted in a more sustainable funding model and 30% income increase over two years.  

Brand Platform Development.  Led rebranding initiative including design and execution of brand audit, creative resource selection/management and decision facilitation with key stakeholders including Board of Directors.  Results included: new brand identity, updated website design and content and new collateral.  

Event Management.  Led planning and execution for presence at major industry tradeshows.  Included booth design and coordination, signage and collateral development, hosting relationship-building gatherings and securing donor meetings.  

Pipeline Development.  Established valuable new relationships with Starbucks, World Vision, Marie Stopes International, Merck and Ideo.org (among others) to advance impact goals and fundraising opportunities.  

Executive Leadership.  Partnered with CEO on organizational leadership and engagement with Board of Directors

Grounds for Health

Vice President, Development and Communications

Executive marketing lead for importer that has redefined supply chain dynamics in the specialty coffee industry. Responsible for strategic planning and day-to-day execution balancing sales and social enterprise priorities.

Executive Marcom Lead. Established strategic communications plan, and managed execution.  Results included increased quantity/quality of media coverage, launch of first-ever advertising campaign and updated digital strategy geared to grow business and reinforce industry thought leadership.  Directly managed team of three, indirect management for global team of five.  

Global Program and Event Management.  Led Roya Recovery Project, a disaster relief initiative to help Latin American coffee farmers recover from the social and economic impact of climate change-related crop disease.  Secured corporate partnerships, engaged government agencies (USAID), launched communications program, managed development of bilingual farmer education materials and first-ever Let’s Talk Roya event held in El Salvador.   

Corporate Social Responsibility. Led cross-functional business development program to engage customers in global CSR/sustainability projects.  Resulted in $500K+ in additional funding and new relationship with major brand.  

Relationship Management.  Company liaison to Coffeelands Food Security Coalition, a working group of industry leaders dedicated to addressing critical supply chain sustainability issues and the relative social and economic impact on farmers.

Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers

Director of Marketing and Communications

MCDM Alumni Fellow

Taught seminar entitled "The Art of Strategic Storytelling - For Business, Leadership and Social Change".  Examined the foundational principles and methodologies for using storytelling as a tool to build brand awareness, foster advocacy and influence policy.

Ashesi University College

Guest Lecturer

verbal800 is a strategic communications consultancy dedicated to building awareness and social capital around world-changing ideas.  

Sample results:
Public Affairs. Mobilized community advocacy groups to influence legislative decision-making. Resulted in national media coverage (CNN, Good Morning America, New York Times) and more favorable dialogue with healthcare influentials and lawmakers that ultimately factored into state-sponsored anti-trust ruling. Awareness-building activities for Libraries Yes! Campaign resulted in passage of Multnomah County Library Levy by 4:1 margin.

Digital Strategy/Social Media. Increased online engagement cited as key factor in successful completion of multi-million dollar capital campaigns including one with the Bezos Family Foundation.

Visual storytelling.  Narrative development, direction, camera work and video production for Lewis & Clark College, University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, Grainger and Boopsie resulting in eight videos used for internal and external communications programs.

Writing/Editing.   Development of a wide range of content including news releases, blog posts, newsletters, op-eds and by-lined articles.  Articles have appeared in Monday Developments, Roast Magazine, CoffeeTalk Magazine, Stanford Social Innovation Review and Huffington Post. 

Event and Tradeshow Management.  Booth coordination, visibility strategy, announcement planning and on-site meeting/activity facilitation at GSM Mobile World Congress, American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, Specialty Coffee Association (SCAA) Annual Conference, Consumer Electronics Show (CES), National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), among others. 

Executive Communications. Development of executive thought-leadership platforms for myriad clients resulting in high profile speaking invitations such as TEDx and Portland City Club.

verbal800 Communications

President & Founder 

• Led Microsoft Global Account Planning.  Involved more than 10 business divisions worldwide and represented more than $50M in agency revenue. Established new methodologies and trained teams on new processes.

• Led numerous high-profile Microsoft product launches and cross-divisional initiatives targeting consumer, enterprise and entertainment industry audiences (music and television).  Executive management for Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and others.  Managed client budgets of $25K to $5M.  

• Led Northwest business development.  Results included triple portfolio growth and revenue increase of approximately $500K. Established best practices for evaluation, outreach and engagement of new clients.  Included P&L responsibility.

• Built and managed award-winning teams. Identified and grew talent.  Structured teams to efficiently meet client business objectives. Teams consistently demonstrated high productivity, enthusiasm, creativity and accountability.  

• Launched world-class agency re-branding effort. Collaborated with agency leadership team to establish new Innovations Communications positioning.  Championed website overhaul, internal communications, staff training and external rollout.

Pam Kahl