The PR industry spent twenty years training specialists. The market rewarded operators instead. One of the most important communications executives of the last decade may be someone the public barely recognizes.
Before she built SKIMS into a $5 billion brand, Tracy Nguyen Romulus was the publicist for Kanye West and a former senior vice president at 5W. The early profile of one of the most important communications operators of the last decade.
In 2011, Kim Kardashian stripped down for a Skechers Super Bowl ad. A decade later she wasn't endorsing brands — she was building one worth $5 billion. The arc between those two facts is the most instructive story in celebrity endorsement.
From a 2007 reality pilot to a $5 billion shapewear company — the definitive map of how Kim Kardashian's public image was built, broken, rebuilt, and converted into an operating business, phase by phase.
She didn't get famous by accident. The reality show, the magazine covers, SKIMS — every move runs through a publicity engine most consumer brands would study for a decade. Here's the five-move Kardashian PR playbook, including the CMO-led brand architecture under Tracy Romulus.