(Download Kathryn's Resume)
Kathryn Kiefer has spent more than 25 years in communications. When she launched her communications consulting business nearly a decade ago, it was because she saw a growing but unmet need in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors:
Organizations need new, enhanced and more effective ways of delivering and monitoring key messages delivered to their target audiences, whether through the news media or as a speaker, that go beyond the tired, overworked and increasingly ineffective PR staples.
Help comes just in time. People are hit with a constant barrage of messages – commercial, institutional, charitable, social service -- all clamoring for a moment of attention. By some accounts, the typical adult is assaulted by more than 5,000 messages a day, blurring together in their mind into an indistinguishable, quickly forgotten, mish-mash.
No wonder people are increasingly leery and cynical of even the most sincere message, whether seen on television, read in a newspaper or heard from a speaker at a seminar.
No wonder executives of private companies, non- and not-for-profit organizations, and public institutions realize they need a different way of delivering their message – and ask us to help them do it.
A Track Record In Communications.
Kathryn is the only media consultant in St. Louis to bring direct experience working in the media to helping clients. She has spent her entire profession life working in communications, both in front of and behind the camera as an anchor, interviewer, reporter, producer and writer, and now as a consultant and advisor
A three-time Emmy Award winning reporter and anchor in major markets including St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and Seattle, Kathryn covered some of the most important and explosive stories of the late 20th century. While working in TV news, she developed the effective communications tools that she now shares with clients.
She has conducted hundreds of media awareness seminars throughout North America, and for many years wrote a popular column, “Talk About Talk,” for the The St. Louis Business Journal, offering insights into how people communicate. She has taught journalism and presentation skills courses at Washington University, and lectures annually at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine program in neuroscience.
Break Through
Kathryn creates, develops and delivers effective, proven ways to break through the clutter, cynicism and outright disbelief of the media. Among her accomplishments are:
• Ground-breaking strategies for media placements on television and in newspapers for health care organizations.
• Setting records for funds raised, people participating and media exposure for medical research through a totally different approach to the media and the public.
• Helping launch programs that introduced more than 15,000 inner-city children to jazz, folk and classical concerts, drawing extensive media coverage.
• Developing a unique communications tool for the CEO of a new business that tripled the number of projected new business contacts in the first year.
• Providing lawyers at an international law firm with ways to spot business press opportunities, and training them how to approach and be interviewed by reporters.
• Participating in a “marketing think tank” of a global benefits firm to help it re-position itself to clients through the news media by developing a strategic approach to media management.
• Producing and writing a weekly television series on medicine and health care for consumers that aired on stations across Missouri.
As hard as she works for clients, Kathryn also works hard to make St. Louis a better place to live.
She serves on the board of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and is board president of Humanities Instructional Television Educational Corp., which provides media literacy and access to undeserved populations in the region. She chairs the Marketing and Communications Committee of the Girl Scout Council of Greater St. Louis, and sits on the organization’s board. She served as president of Friends of the Sheldon and is a member of the Sheldon Arts Foundation board.