Business Insider has come out with their feature story on the best tech PR people of 2015, and not surprisingly it includes a who’s who of PR professionals from technology leaders including Twitter, Google, Uber and more.
Those on the list include PR agency staffers from Brunswick Group, Ruder Finn, Waggener Edstrom, and the biggest fan of Everything PR News, Ed Zitron.
This is a list mainly of PR people for the biggest tech companies in the world. If we owned a PR agency, we’d be worried about the staffers on this list staying employed – this is the best list for any PR recruiter to ever read.
Here are some highlights from their list – solely of PR agency pros:
No. 50: Chris O’Brien, Artifact. Chris recently launched this new PR firm; no doubt thanks to his “tireless work ethic,” which remains a necessary habit in tech space today. Chris did PR for BarkBox the past few years, until he launched Artifact with a crew of fifteen. Artifact turns heads because it already attracts big names like PGA Tour.
No. 49: Amber Rowland, The Rowland Agency. Amber ranks among the hardest working PR pros in the enterprise tech world. She began her career as one of VMware’s first employees before venturing out on her own in 2009. Afterwards, she worked as the marketing manager at VC General Catalyst. The company refers to her as “knowledgeable, [and] sophisticated” with a vivacious mix of “great work ethic, and knowledge of Silicon Valley and the enterprise industry nationwide”.
No. 45: Stephanie Ng, Mighty PR – who was nominated by a number of leading journalists.
No. 43: Stephanie Heise, Brunswick Group who was detailed as “not too aggressive with her pitches, knows how to deal with the press,” and, most important, she’s “honest” when dealing with controversial subject matter.”
No. 41: Colin Jordan, Egnyte . According to the San Francisco tech community, Colin ought to make this list because of his punctual pitching. He does it to the right reporter at the right time. Loved by his contemporaries, PR Newser featured Colin in their “30 under 30 in PR” list.
No. 39: Alisa Richter, Small Girls PR. Alisa began working for Small Girls PR last year, and amazes tech press with sensible pitches. Alisa sends the best story ideas to companies she represents, such as, Helix Sleep, GE, Lulu, Panasonic and others. She entered the PR world from a previous career in the decorating startup Homepolish, and worked as program manager at TechStars NYC before then.
No. 38: Luke Lappala, Martin Levy Public Relations. Luke is not only helpful, but reliably quick in responses. His pitches always show relevance to the style and schedule of journalists. His bosses say he’s “[a] walking Rolodex,” and his specialties in PR include consumer electronics, wearables, and gadgets.
No. 35: Jim Redner, The Redner Group. Jim does PR for Facebook’s virtual reality device, known as the Oculus Rift. He keeps his clients in the know with open and honest appraisals of the situation, regardless of present conflicts. In 2011 he suffered a bit of a scandal after a long Twitter rant about a negative game review. However, he learned from the ordeal, and regained journalists’ trust.
No. 33: Elliot Tomaeno, Astrsk PR. Many know Elliot for his work with startups in New York. He does PR work for Gin Lane, Trello, and Squarespace. Clients love him, because he brings personal touch and data together like long-lost lovers. “Eliot was one of the first people to realize the power of data and analytics in the art of PR,” said one reporter of him. He also enjoys a reputation as a “nice and normal in person, never fake and never was[ting of clients’] time with stories that aren’t [their] beat.”
No. 32: Nicki Dugan Pogue, Outcast PR. Nicki helped OutCast PR earn journalists’ respect nationwide. After a decade at Yahoo, he worked with Airbnb, DARPA, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, DARPA, the Nike Foundation, Lytro, Pinterest, Udacity, and Samsung. Reporters trust her to work fast and produce relevant pitches.
No. 27: Ethan Chernofsky, Headline Media. One journalist said Ethan is, “one of the smartest, nicest PR people in the business.” Headline Media, his company, does PR for Israel’s most popular companies, such as IronSource, Wix, PlayBuzz, and LightTricks. He finds it easy to set up blind dates for journalists and companies he doesn’t represent.
No. 26: Jenny Edelston, Ruder Finn. Jenny grew famous in the tech PR world for representing Infor, the software company run by the former Oracle president, Charles Phillips. Her firm, Ruder Finn, gained its own impressive list of giants like Johnson & Johnson, Cisco, McDonald’s, and others. Finn won praise from journalists for “thinking like a journalist”, and sending individual pitches that rank among the best in the world.
No. 24: Mike Barash, Knock Twice. In 2010, Mike founded Knock Twice. This came after a tour de force across a good number of the best PR firms, such as Atomic PR, Sutherland Gold Group, and Outcast. His firm worked with Imgur, Google, Big Switch, and Github. One editor praised him by saying, “He understands the value of personal relationships and does not pitch inappropriate startups.”
No. 18: Brooke Hammerling, Brew PR. Many know Brooke as a famed PR diva of both coasts, but her New York rep remains a legend in the tech community. To put it mildly, one reporter said, “Brooke is helpful and very well connected”. Brooke and her team know exactly when, how, and what to pitch a client.
No. 12: Pete Wootton, Waggener Edstrom (WE). Pete belongs to Microsoft’s team of spokespeople from its most treasured PR company, WE, where he worked for almost seventeen years. Long, long ago, many criticized Microsoft as slow, but Wootton is past all that, and is as fast as PR pros come. Several tech reporters nominated him.
No. 11: Ed Zitron, EZPR. Ed is special. He can pitch hard without overwhelming and annoying journalists. He expands on his “unconventional approach to PR” in his book “This Is How You Pitch”. One journalist said of him, “Ed is easily the most cynical PR person I’ve ever met. He hates his profession even more than journalists do. It’s refreshing. I love the way he slaps his colleagues around in public. It’s great sport. And he treats journ[alists] like human beings, which most of us are, most of the time.”
Media did say that “Ed is easily the most cynical PR person I’ve ever met. He hates his profession even more than journalists do. It’s refreshing. I love the way he slaps his colleagues around in public. It’s great sport. And he treats journos like human beings, which most of us are, most of the time.”
We still don’t understand why that makes him a good PR pro….but hey, Business Insider is WAY better read than Everything-PR.