Elizabeth Lazar
Chicago,IL
Summary
Seasoned communications executive with a heart for story and a mind for business. Author to highly effective and original fundraising strategies and pitching scripts, designed to accelerate growth campaigns, brand-expansion and visibility initiatives in both public and private realms. A powerful leader with a formidable network of donors / investors. A collective-minded approach and team-player ego, from conception to implementation. When it comes to mission-driven development, understands fiscal negotiation in context of the morality / legacy play. Looking to ply growth-minded narrative strategies and story-crafting expertise toward meaningful work alongside big-thinking, radically creative, service-driven teams.
Overview
14
14
years of professional experience
Work History
Executive Communications / PR Consultant
Corporate, NPO And Government Clients
Chicago, IL
01.2016 - Current
- Delivered world-class public communications products and services to a wide range of prominent clients across both public and private sectors including technology, travel, live events, insurance, education, public health, public policy, hospitality and media.
- Created from scratch disciplined, relevant and compelling messaging frameworks for highly visible thought and business leaders in cultivation of personal voice and professional brand, across both internal stakeholder correspondence, and external media platforms.
- Models often required hyper-current fluency in daily news cycle, national and international political and financial markets as well as preemptive attunement to subtle zeitgeist shifts in social and cultural trends.
- Projects included press releases, presentations, interview coaching / scripting for television appearances on major networks, personal brand cultivation, speeches for major national and international events, including U.S. Senate appearances, multiple op-eds, (The Washington Post, Time, NYT The Daily, Wired, Foreign Policy, Daily Beast, Newsweek, among others.)
- Supported clients with deep market research and business analysis
- Liaised with full sales / staff teams to better understand customer / audience / constituent needs and prescribe bespoke and effective solutions
- Authored detailed work plans to meet client goals and deadlines.
Vice President of Communications
Diners Club International - Discover Financial Services
Chicago, IL
03.2011 - 02.2015
- Developed and managed internal and external communications, tightly coupled with strategy and execution in creation of original financial services products in partnership with leading merchants, restaurants and service-industry brands around the world.
- Created successful and enduring thought leadership platforms including Dine for Change, designed to increase brand visibility and expand membership through corporate responsibility, community impact and consumer trust and loyalty.
- Developed and research thought leadership material aligned to key themes, including innovation, impact, entrepreneurship, diversity, and cultural relevance
- Directed and cultivated fruitful communication within marketing community, encouraging open-sharing content and strategic thinking
- Harmonious management of team members including communications manager and specialist positions;
- Developed and created presentations used by the executive sales team, aligned with the overall marketing strategy
- Collaborated closely with executive team to develop strategic platforms to communicate vision and plans to a global internal and external audience
Vice President, Business Development
SeatQuest
Chicago, IL
09.2009 - 11.2012
- Developed and managed branding and pitch language for outside press, internal sales and legal teams materials used to acquire access to lead competitor's inventory, a supplemental feed valuing over a billion dollars of ticket supply. Led the company to a successful sale of the digital seat mapping platform to major media company.
- Hired and managed employees with an eye to growth, collaboration and loyalty
Education
Master of Arts - International Relations
- Merit Scholar Recipient
Bachelor of Arts -
Skills
- Exceptional and versatile writer across vast subject matter and media
- Powerful and compelling communicator, spanning culturally and ideologically diverse audience landscape
- Persuasive, original, tech-forward presenter / pitcher
- A "quick study" talent for synthesizing, in short order, sprawling data and positions in order to identify core voice and brand-development themes
- Keen and hyper-current intuition of rapid-shifting and fractured public sentiment (An inveterate news junkie)
- Original and visionary architect of authentic rhetorical frameworks across media and multimedia narrative platforms, designed to excite and unify current stakeholders while attracting new ones
- Humble leader with a fierce wit, warm humor and an omnivorous and constant curiosity A greedy reader of books, people and culture
- Empathic team-player approach and an eye to how the model figures into the grander picture of markets, missions and meaning (Gentle extractor of myopia)
- A self-critic, a deep thinker and a reflexive doer susceptible to suggestion, criticism and best practices of colleagues and onlookers A checked ego
- A genuine and joyful celebrator of broad-spectrum diversity among humanity and cohorts, in all respects
- A sincere and profound work ethic
- An enduring and stubborn commitment to service
Timeline
Executive Communications / PR Consultant - Corporate, NPO And Government Clients
01.2016 - Current
Vice President of Communications - Diners Club International - Discover Financial Services
03.2011 - 02.2015
Vice President, Business Development - SeatQuest
09.2009 - 11.2012
University of Chicago - Master of Arts, International Relations
Sarah Lawrence University - Bachelor of Arts,
Languages
Spanish
Full Professional
Published Writing
Have written original editorials, news stories, podcasts for multiple outlets including NPR, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Time, Slate, The Huffington Post, The New Internationalist, and a number of newspapers including LA Times, NY Post, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Miami Herald. The work spans national and world politics, criminal justice reform, racial and gender equity, refugee crisis, food and wine, travel, immigration reform, gun control, terrorism, mothering, humor, and backsliding democracy.
LinkedIn Profile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/executivecommunicationsandpublicrelations
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