TreeHouse Foods

Communications Manager, Social and Digital Engagement

Patina Solutions

Communications Consultant

Karen Nicholas Communications

Freelance Writer & Communications Professional

Millig Design Build

I recruited and onboarded new employees and created various communication pieces to increase employee engagement. I created a Human Resources department and established internal communications best practices. I helped plan events and contributed to our marketing communications efforts.

Director of Communications & Employee Relations

Willdan Performance Engineering 

I provided communication strategy, developed content for both internal and external audiences and recruited new employees for our division. 

I created targeted communications to ensure employee engagement. I identified new ways to improve and innovate our internal and external communication practices and channels, including monthly update meetings, a branded Medium.com site, video communications, etc. 

I also recruited, hired, and onboarded new employees. I focused on furthering initiatives around Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, particularly in the hiring, recruiting, and onboarding process.

Communications & Talent Acquisition Manager

I designed presentations to share critical findings with clients, focusing on simplicity and client engagement. I also helped package our data into consumable content such as charts, graphs, etc.

University of Kansas

As the first communications person for the IT Department, I created and oversaw all communication efforts, including communications planning, crisis communications, and copywriting. I developed internal communication strategies and materials to support new launches, programs, and processes. 

I distilled complex, technical information into simple, digestible, and actional messages for diverse internal audiences, including students, faculty, and staff.  I also built relationships with other departments and team members to ensure seamless launches of new technologies and programs.

IT Communications & Media Relations Manager

David Evans and Associates, Inc.

As the first person in my role,  I created and executed a media relations program – including pitching media, writing press releases, ghostwriting bylines, and submitting applications for various awards. I ensured our external messages were consistent with our internal messages and focused my efforts on telling DEA’s brand story. 

I developed media pitches and articles to attract and engage with new talent through employee profiles in publications, company culture articles, and Best Places to Work awards. We were ranked on Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work during my time in this role. 

I engaged with senior leadership and colleagues on media outreach opportunities and provided media training, including crisis communications guidance. 

I also assisted in various internal communications efforts, including contributions to internal newsletters and employee communication pieces.

Media Relations Manager

Edelman

Account Supervisor

Special Olympics Texas

Public Relations Coordinator

Corporate Communications | Writer | Employee & Internal Communications - Helping companies engage with their employees and clients

In our current remote/hybrid work environment, engaging and communicating with employees has never been more challenging – or essential. Creating an environment for employees to be the best versions of themselves is not only a cultural win – it’s also a business win.

A Gallup "State of the Workplace" report found that when employees are engaged at work, profitability increases by 21%. Yet, this same report shared that 65% of employees aren’t engaged at work.

We spend a lot of time talking “at” people – not necessarily “to” them. My goal isn’t just to communicate a message. My goal is to ensure those messages are delivered and digested by the audience. It’s also my responsibility to provide executive guidance and direction when messages aren’t the right voice and fit for the audience.

With a background in media relations, editorial content creation, internal communications and employee relations, I bring a range of creative skills and experience to any position. Communicating with employees and partners can be a company's greatest strength rather than its biggest weakness.

Karen Nicholas

RedTale Communications, LLC

Seeing your story, concepts, ideas, and work come to life through visual communications is the best way to understand one another and make things happen. RedTale Communications offers graphic recording, sketchnoting, tailored illustration, narration, visual communications and more to present your information in new and exciting ways. If you are looking for more ways to tell your story, we should chat.

Chief Illustration/Hope Officer

Redtale Communications LLC

Curated my daily illustrated quotes during the pandemic and shared 90 of them in four seasonal journals that can be purchased on https://shopccmd.com/product-category/redtale-communications/

Book Author, "90 Days To Write Your Way to (Winter, Spring, Summer, & Fall)"

MBO Partners

Created storyboards, illustrations, graphic recording charts, and rich pictures to represent organizational capabilities in a way that demonstrates value, bonded teams together, generated strategic discussions, and helped unify companies and their customers so they can all speak the same way about what is going on around them. Deliverables included rich pictures spread across shorter reports to help explain what was going on, how we got here, and how things worked.

Sketchnoting | Red Teaming | Design Thinking

Noblis

•	Supported military planners, strategists, and policy makers to represent enemy and alternative perspectives towards developing plans, strategy, lines of efforts, and Commander's end states;
•	Co-facilitated and participating in operational design (developing shared understanding, group learning, problem framing) workshops (20+) to aid planners, operators, analysts, and strategists in developing appropriate and necessary steps, uncover faulty logic, and explore alternative futures, establishing current and future frames, providing expert problem solving;
•	Tailored Red Team (alternative analysis, devil’s advocacy, and enemy perspectives) support to Campaign planners, cyber strategists, and policy makers;
•	Conducted intelligence support to planning and strategic development by refining and discussing meaningful priority cyber intelligence requirements;
•	Represented enemy, friendly, or competitor perspectives with specific emphasis on enemy control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), operations, planning, and training efforts;
•	Analyzed platform IT (PIT) industry norms, cyber incident reports and mitigations, policies, and plans to support kick off of DoD-wide working group and PIT strategy development;
•	Provided unorthodox and non-traditional approaches to elusive cyber issues;

Red Teaming | Cyber Threat Intelligence | Design Thinking

Sally Daniel Training Company

•	Delivered (25+) presentation and communication skills courses to strategic consultants; 
•	Provided in depth training, guidance, and consultation to improve briefing presence; 
•	Generated critical assessments and feedback for students in simulated briefing modules

Corporate Training Specialist

Summit Solutions

* Conducted root cause analysis for business processes, communications, and technical tools/training;
* Recommended changes to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency based on strategic
objectives and organizational strategy;
* Developed visually appealing information graphics to present organization statistics, metrics, and emerging topics that required additional focus and addressed future planning objectives.

Intelligence Analyst, Strategic Consultant

BCT LLC

* Designed and hosted ten unique 'Ask the Hacker' sessions with certification and accreditation professionals;
* Conducted network defense and trending analysis to influence future defense strategies;
* Designed and delivered open source research plan for obtaining emerging threat and technology
information on information assurance and information security issues from industry sources;
* Coordinated network defense mission areas to aide in efficiency across incident response teams;
* Researched network events to propose policy updates and network defense investments;
* Developed table tops and training for information assurance and information security issues;
* Populated intelligence for attack trees, attacker's goals, network defense capabilities, recovery costs, and notional probabilities of attack and defense successes for strategic decision makers;
* Conducted extended enterprise information assurance assessments for maturing the capabilities and improvement strategies;
* Delivered all customer strategic communications: briefings, white papers, website content, ghost written correspondence to stakeholders, partners and leaders throughout government;
* Developed and provided communication skill curriculum for senior executives for more effective briefing and communication techniques.

Cyber Intelligence Analyst, Corporate Communications Specialist

Booz Allen Hamilton

Worked with Special Projects to identify critical information for high priority targets;
* Identified to work with analytic cell on emerging hostile groups, individuals and websites;
* Created analytic profiles to substantiate ongoing operations against high value targets, authored
analytic standard operating procedures (SOP) for cyber analysts;
* Developed sharable network defense resources between customers and mission partners;
* Provided open source analysis on electrical power grid and Supervisory Control and Data
Acquisition (SCADA) systems for ongoing modeling and simulation efforts;
* Researched and examined specifications, user behavior, and critical infrastructure by exploring
the unclassified web, trade magazines, blogs, social networking sites, and technical journals;
* Designed and delivered an extensive analysis and production training plan for more than sixty
inbound military, contractor, and government civilians;
* Briefed senior military leaders on high priority intelligence targets/centers of gravity;
* Co-authored SOP for open source research lab to initiate and maintain best practices.

Intelligence Analyst

Researched, compiled, and authored vendor profiles for clients using market research databases,
open source, industry journals, and conference materials to initiate vendor identification and
proposal efforts;
* Created vendor profiles for client selection for major IT outsourcing and offshoring engagements;
* Planned, organized, and implemented professional conferences and recruiting events.

Commercial Competitive Intelligence Researcher

Sheppard Pratt

Taught fifth and sixth grade students with learning disabilities and emotional disorders,
ultimately leading to creative problem solving skills and a wealth of patience
* Created daily lesson plans and Individualized Education Plans (IEP) to correspond with regulated
educational goals, social skill recommendations, and curriculums
* Developed curriculum enhancement tools to encourage the application of social skills with adults
and peers in the forms of tailored cartoons coupled with specific behavior management plans
* Co-chaired weekly family counseling sessions for students and family members and provided daily
crisis counseling and emotional support

Special Education Elementary School Teacher & Adjunct Family Therapist

A Thinker Who Draws, Illustrator, Sketchnote Artist, Graphic Recorder: Focused on spreading hope using #graphicrecording #sketchnoting #illustration #art #emotionalintelligence

I'm a thinker who draws, and you'll often find me with pen in hand, drawing while listening.  Illustrating concepts helps me understand information in a far greater way than just hearing or reading whatever content I'm learning. 

Throughout my life, I always found that I would remember pictures better than words alone. After nearly 20 years on a winding path of experience, I decided that this valuable skill could be used to help others understand better, too. Now I spend my days bringing conversations to life and creating art for clients of all kinds. Whether I am drawing live for your event, creating a tailored illustration for your story or book, or just drawing a daily quote about hope, I'm visualizing everything.

I believe that in a world filled with words, more pictures will always do. I've found that starting small and working your way is always best. Bring me your stories and watch them come to life in a new way.

RedTale Communications was founded in February 2020 to help people tell their stories through visuals and narration. If you are finding yourself in the same meetings over and over again or stuck in a project that lacks the creative influence and flow you desire, contact us to hear more about how we can help.

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The Battle

Karen Nicholas

Wade Forbes

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