Kellie Kennedy
Media Specialist
With more than a decade of public relations experience, Kellie Kennedy consistently has delivered results for clients in the healthcare, corporate, public affairs and nonprofit arenas. Her background has focused on developing and implementing communication strategies for media, marketing, brand awareness and community relations campaigns.
At The Harbinger Group Kellie manages media outreach on behalf of clients, which has resulted in connecting them with top-tier reporters to tell their stories. She also identifies and executes other strategic communications opportunities that raise the profile of clients among their key audiences.
Kellie has directed the communications and marketing for St. Mary’s Services, a nonprofit adoption agency. She leads all media outreach, advertising, marketing, branding and fundraising. Kellie has secured more than 20 media mentions of the agency, revised the content and design of all marketing materials, including the website, and in one year, contributed to a 30 percent increase in clients. Her fundraising efforts also have yielded more than $125,000 for the agency.
As senior counsel to the Illinois Organization of Nurse Leaders (IONL), Kellie garnered significant media coverage in local and trade publications. She also provided strategic direction to the IONL as they looked to increase their presence in the region.
Prior to this work, Kellie was a member of the Public Relations Division at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where she collaborated with nurses, physicians and other caregivers to create communications and marketing strategies that highlighted innovative medical advances and news at the hospital. She also planned, wrote and edited medical stories for six award-winning hospital publications (combined circulation of nearly one million) that targeted consumers, physicians and hospital staff.
For six years, Kellie worked at Hill and Knowlton Public Relations where she handled media relations for a broad range of clients -- from the former Marshall Field’s and ALDI grocery stores to a nonprofit (Prevention First) dedicated to drug abuse and pregnancy prevention. Work for clients included securing national and statewide media attention and providing strategic direction for major events and milestones. Kellie’s work with the Illinois Lottery and Isle of Capri Casino alone yielded national media attention with CNBC Morning Call, CNBC Power Lunch, CNNfn Money Gang, Bloomberg TV, TIME Magazine and Good Morning America. Her counsel for Marshall Field’s contributed to a 90 percent sales increase at their flagship store, and her media outreach and strategic planning was instrumental to a 24 percent increase in ALDI’s sales.
Kellie’s diverse client experience also includes other clients such as the Illinois Department of Transportation, Motorola, the Welsh Development Agency, Mitsubishi and the Hewlett-Packard Corporation.
Kellie graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Political Science.
