Ironman CEO PR Challengers: Aaron Kwittken & Peter Shankman
The creators of the Ironman fundraising foot-race are seeking sponsorships to help the event grow. The participants of Ironman include those able to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles in less than seventeen hours. Obviously a maximal degree of commitment, perseverance, and discipline are required to foster realistic hope of completing the requisite training to compete seriously in Ironman. Here are some of the competitors:
Andrew Messick – The Real Ironman
The CEO of Ironman, Andrew Messick organizes and oversees incredible middle and long distance races around the world, and is responsible for expanding his brand in new directions and bringing the sport to increasingly widening audiences.
In an interview with Triathlete Europe, Messick explained that he began his career working for one of the big advertising agencies in New York. Despite his contentment, he went back to graduate school and completed his MBA at Yale, and was subsequently recruited by McKinsey and Company. While there for six years, Messick worked primarily in sales and marketing. After leaving McKinsey and Co., Messick worked for Sara Lee Corporation in England, Canada and Australia.
After this, Messick was recruited by the National Basketball Association to manage their international businesses in 2000. For seven years, Andrew worked for David Stern and Adam Silver to grow their international businesses. Later, in 2007, Messick joined AEG in LA, and managed their sports division. While there, he oversaw basketball, and even looked at its expansion into China for a period of time.
Peter Shankman – Visionary, Author, Entrepreneur and Professional Networker
Peter Shankman is a forty-three-year-old American entrepreneur, author, and blogger from New York City. He co-founded Shankman Honig, a renown customer service consultancy firm for social media marketing. He created the Help a Reporter Out (HARO) project, an innovative service for outsourcing journalists. In HARO’s first year, it became the standard for thousands of journalists facing merciless deadlines by offering over 200,000 sources worldwide anxious to be quoted in big media. To this day, HARO sends more than 1,500 queries around the world every week.
Shankman also created The Geek Factory, Inc, a boutique Social Media, Marketing and PR Strategy firm in New York. Its clients span the globe.
But Peter Shankman’s accomplishments are not only private, but public, too. He has authored three books: Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans, Nice Companies Finish First: Why Cutthroat Management is over and Collaboration is In, Customer Service: New Rules for a Social-Enabled World, and Can We Do That?!, which focus on marketing and social media. In the past, Shankman has spoken at TED X, South by Southwest, and numerous other popular conferences.
Who is Aaron Kwittken?
Global chairman and chief executive officer of KWITTKEN, an MDC Partners agency, His company, KWITTKEN is a, award winning PR and content marketing American agency. In 2014, The Holmes Report named KWITTKEN Small Agency of the Year, and in 2013 was named Best Place to Work by PR Week magazine.
Aaron Kwittken is a regular guest on Fox Business Network, Bloomberg TV, and CNBC. There he expresses his enlightened opinions on reputation, brand management, and public relations in general. Additionally, he blogs for Forbes.com. He currently oversees KWITTEN offices in New York, London, and Toronto, not to mention the agency’s partner firms in France, Hong Kong, China, Spain and Australia.
Aaron Kwittken’s Background
Aaron’s extraordinary entrepreneurial accomplishments have not occurred at the expense of his extra-office liberties. An avid cyclist, runner, and competitive swimmer, Aaron began competing in triathlons near the end of 2008. After four short years, Aaron took his athletic aspirations to the next level when he competed in the US Ironman Championship competition in New York, raising $30,000 for Center Lane (an LGBTQ adolescents’ resource) in 2012. Aaron finished his second full-length Ironman triathlon in 2014 in Lake Placid, New York. Through these athletic feats, Kwittken raises funds for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF).
Chelsea Tiner – Entrepreneurial Youth, Bright Future
Chelsea Tiner lives in Austin, and is Vice President of operations at Photomadic, a photo and video producing service for marketing, advertising and entertainment needs. She is also founder and owner of a health and fitness publication for the Dallas, TX area. The magazine, LivingFIT was published monthly with a 20,000 copy-run distributed at over five-hundred locations.
Clearly Tiner proves that it’s never too early for a young business professional to branch out to meet new challenges. Her favorite race is the Ironman distance, because she enjoys the mental challenge involved in pulling energy out of her innermost core. For her, it’s not until one has exerted their self to the point of being completely exposed that an athlete finds out what they’re really made of.
These are some of the best in-share PR and marketing people in America.
