Diana Birkett Rakow is the new VP-external relations at Alaska Airlines, succeeding Joe Sprague, who left Sept. 1 after a 17-year stint.
|
|
Diana Birkett RakowShe was VP-PA, communications and brand manager at Kaiser Permanente, joining the managed care consortium with its acquisition of Group Health Cooperative.
Rakow led Group Health's 75-member strong PA/marketing team and its budget in excess of $25M.
Earlier, she worked three years on the US Senate Finance Committee.
At the airline, Rakow is in charge of corporate communications, government relations and community outreach teams in Alaska, Hawaii, San Francisco and Seattle.
The Alaska Air Group (Alaska Air, Virgin America and Horizon Air) flies 40M passengers a year to about 120 destinations in the US, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and Cuba.
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.
The “waiting period” that was once set aside for CEOs to develop their strategies before facing media scrutiny may be better used for corporate comms leaders get to know their CEO and what his or her short-term priorities will be.
Senior-most communications executives in the Fortune 500 earned between $50,000 and $100,000 more this year than they did two years ago, according to a recent survey of chief communications officers.
