Kathy Grannis Allen, senior director of media relations for the National Retail Foundation, has taken off for the Washington-based airline trade group Airlines for America as managing director for airline industry PR and communications.
Allen spent 10 years at the NRF as a top media liaison after starting out with Stovell Marketing and NAVAIR.
A4A, as the trade group is known, also added Nicole Soufi as manager of social media from government statistics contractor Westat, where she was a digital and social media associate.
A4A lobbies and advocates for a sector that claims 11M jobs and $1.5 trillion in economic activity in the US.
Jean Media is senior VP of communications.
Established through a founding gift from 2025 Page Hall of Fame inductee and former Weber Shandwick Global CEO Andy Polansky, the fund is meant to serve as a catalyst for empowering future senior communications leaders as well as increasing the diversity in the chief communications officer pipeline.
Some well-honed communications strategies typically deployed in an activist situation must be set aside when the activist is also the founder of the company. Such situations require a more tailored response: one that respects the founder’s credibility without conceding the company’s future, addresses shareholders’ financial interests while acknowledging questions of legacy, and anticipates that the fight may be as personal and persistent as it is strategic.
Molly Fogarty, who rose to head of corporate affairs & sustainability at Nestle during a nearly 23-year stint, will join Brunswick Group as a partner in DC on Sept. 14.
Senior leaders have been exiting newly combined agencies since the wave of integrations started—the kind of departures that don't always make headlines but show up in who's running client accounts six months later.
Why CEO visibility is no longer optional as a communications tactic.
