The PRovoke Media Podcast

In this episode of the PRovoke Media podcast, Aarti Shah talks to Margot Edelman, GM of Edelman's Bay Area hub, about growing up in the PR's most famous family and why that has been a double-edged sword. She also reflects on how Edelman's tech practice has evolved to become one of its mightiest business drivers — and the new approach she takes to growing and expanding the company's presence in Silicon Valley.

This episode features Karen Kahn, head of corporate affairs & chief communications officer at HP, and Maureen Lippe, founder & chair, of Lippe Taylor. The candid conversation, moderated by PRovoke's executive editor Aarti Shah, covers how the CCO role of the future must evolve so that communications is making corporate policy — not simply communicating it, the impact purpose is having on recruitment during a severe talent crunch, the role clients must take in holding agencies accountable around diversity, and more. 

In this episode of the PRovoke Media podcast, Aarti Shah talks to Dylan Tweney and Kathleen Gratehouse about ways the PR industry has evolved how it brings journalists into the business. Tweney, formerly of VentureBeat and Wired, joined Highwire this year as the agency's first editor-in-chief. In this conversation, the group shares their experiences and observations —  and provide lessons for the PR industry as it continues to expand its hiring pool to journalists. 

In the first episode of our new series on Modern Brand Belief, in partnership with imre, we explore data-informed innovation with Lindsay McGettigan, SVP & activation group director at imre, and Ryan Billings, head of oncology digital customer experience at GSK. The conversation includes defining innovation amid today's hype cycle, the unexpected intersection of data and empathy, and how to avoid pitfalls of chasing 'the shiny new object' when it comes to innovation. PRovoke senior reporter Diana Marszalek hosts the discussion.

The PR industry — in particular the agency side of the business — has long faced issues related to ageism. And as many aspects of diversity & inclusion have come to the forefront in the past few years, ageism continues to be relatively taboo and unaddressed. PRovoke Media's latest data shows that in North America only 57%  of PR agency employees believe the industry provides opportunities for those 50+. To discuss this, we bring H&S founder/CEO Elizabeth Harrison onto the show to talk about this with Aarti Shah.

This episode kicks-off a series with Allison+Partners, License to Accelerate: Perspectives on the Future of Health. With May being Mental Health Awareness, in this episode we discuss how the global pandemic has impacted both awareness and action around mental health. The conversation, hosted by PRovoke executive editor Aarti Shah, features Stephanie Rogers, SVP of communications and marketing from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and Michelle Webb, managing director of health at Allison+Partners. They explore the question: while we're seeing signs that the stigma around mental health is eroding somewhat, how can we build on this momentum to ensure that we are guaranteeing #mentalhealth4all?

In this episode, we invite back to the show Sabrina Lynch, SVP at Taylor, to reflect on how the past year has impacted PR professionals of color. The show explores the long-term mental health impact rooted in the trauma of 2020 — in addition to how the workforce of the future has transformed their expectations around work and wellness and what this means for the PR industry emerging from the pandemic.  

Paul Holmes joins the podcast to discuss PRovoke Media's Global Rankings analysis, which revealed that the PR industry only declined 4% during 2020. In conversation with Arun Sudhaman, Holmes examines factors behind the PR sector's resilience, including the demand for corporate affairs counsel and the shift towards stakeholder capitalism and ESG. The duo also discuss whether such significant trends will have a long-lasting impact on the corporate communications function. 

In this episode of the PRovoke Media podcast, we talk to Leslie Campisi, who has spent  more than two decades in PR and marketing, and also recently became a Mayo Clinic-trained coach in order to make wellness a bigger priority within the tech sector. PRovoke executive editor Aarti Shah recently spoke to Campisi about Basecamp's new policy that banned, among other things, “societal and political discussions” on internal forums. The conversation explores how this policy could impact culture and employee's mental health — and what this could mean for other tech companies and the PR agencies they hire. (Since this episode was recorded, Basecamp has addressed the backlash to the policy.) 

In this conversation, Vice CMO Nadja Bellan-White joins Paul Holmes and Jennifer Risi, the Sway Effect’s founder & president, in a discussion on how Vice is reimagining its brand and expanding its reach in the ultra-competitive digital media space. The provocative conversation also explores the ever-changing role media plays in culture and how US media are calibrating to a truly global world. The group also takes a hard-hitting look at diversity and how to tell the difference between hollow efforts at DE&I and ones that are designed to make to make a real impact.