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The Network
Ruth Kinzey
Ruth Ellen Kinzey, founder and president of The Kinzey Company, is known for developing
strategic and comprehensive communication strategies. She emphasizes the importance of
strategically linking communication, branding, marketing and corporate responsibility. Always
focused on protecting and enhancing an organization's reputation, Ms. Kinzey has led
companies through crises and proactive reputational improvements.
Ms. Kinzey has worked in corporate settings within the grocery retail, trucking, natural gas and
computer software industries. During her prolific career, she has prepared change management
communication, launched brands, developed government relations strategies, dealt with
special interest groups, managed crises, established community relationships, supervised
corporate foundations, educated consumers, engaged employees, created corporate
citizenship platforms, supported investor relations activities, and designed and executed public
relations and marketing campaigns. She also was a radio news broadcaster.
Having worked for global organizations, Ms. Kinzey is familiar with diverse cultural
environments. She has contributed to international conference programming, including the
2009 New Models of Social Responsibility Summit, the US Chamber's Business Civic Leadership
Center's 2009 Global Corporate Citizenship Conference, and the 2009 and 2010 Council of
Communication Management's annual meetings. She has consulted in the travel and tourism,
de-construction, natural gas and banking sectors as well as assisted nonprofits. Her executive
speech coaching sessions have helped business leaders improve their presentation skills and
prepare for important meetings and media interviews.
Ms. Kinzey taught public relations, public speaking and journalism at UNC Charlotte. During her
tenure, she established and chaired the Journalism Curriculum Committee and oversaw
Communication Department internships. She has conducted seminars for businesses and
nonprofits on topics ranging from crisis communication to internal customer service to
improving presentation skills to working with board of director members to managing speaker's
bureaus to personal branding.
A columnist for the American City Business Journal, Ms. Kinzey's editorials have appeared
nationwide and addressed a wide variety of reputational topics such as corporate trust,
corporate responsibility, strategic communication, employee engagement, and developing
carefully planned relationships with government and nonprofit partners. Her corporate
stewardship comments on sustainability and health and wellness matters in the grocery
industry can be seen at www.whrefresh.com. She is a U.S. Chamber's Business Civic Leadership
Center Business and Society Relations Program Advisor and served as a judge, selecting finalists
for the BCLC's 2010 and 2011 Corporate Citizenship Awards. She is also currently under contract with Routledge, Taylor and Francis to write a book on nonprofit reputation management.
Always focused on strategically building the reputation of her employers, Ms. Kinzey has
positioned them positively by capturing titles such as Progressive Grocer's Chief Marketing
Officer of the Year for CMOs at two companies and Retailer of the Year; earning federal and
state energy-related recognitions; capturing International Association of Business
Communicator's Bronze and Silver Quill awards for crisis communication plans and media kits;
nabbing PR News Corporate Social Responsibility Environmental Communications; earning
recognition from National Association of Investors, Financial Analysts Federation, and Financial
World for annual reports; and achieving industry recognition for employee communication. She
is the author of the book Using Public Relations Strategies to Promote Your Nonprofit
Organization.
Ms. Kinzey has a MA from University of Iowa in Journalism, with an emphasis on public
relations. She is a magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Coe College, where she
earned a triple major in speech, English and secondary education.
She is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, International Association of
Business Communicators, The Communication Leadership Exchange and the Philanthropy
Journal. Ms. Kinzey serves on the College of Charleston's Communication Advisory Council. She
was named as one of the "Top 25 Women in Business" by the Charlotte Business Journal and is
a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary International Foundation.
The Kinzey Company is headquartered in Salisbury, NC.
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