Jessica Iben

Provide strategic counsel to clients in various industries, including healthcare, IT and non-profit groups.

• Develop and execute PR campaigns and other strategic communication initiatives to promote brand awareness and support clients’ business goals.
• Design thought leadership and executive visibility platforms, as well as shape and enhance organizational brands/reputation.
• Leverage existing, and build new, relationships with local/national/regional/global and trade media outlets, journalists, and industry influencers to drive positive coverage and mitigate reputational risks to clients’ brands.

Served as senior-level earned media lead offering strategic counsel to clients in various industries, including healthcare, financial services, consulting services and manufacturing.

• Developed external communication strategies to promote, protect and defend clients’ corporate reputation and increase awareness of key business priorities.
• Contributed innovative thinking to clients by incorporating media and key market/industry trends and intelligence into strategies and counsel.
• Built strong and ongoing relationships with key stakeholders, including clients, critical media and cross-functional teams.
• Key contributor to multiple new business efforts supplying strategic communications counsel.

Established and led global communication strategies to promote, protect and enhance Axalta’s reputation. Spearheaded communication activities for $1.4 billion global refinish business. Collaborated with leadership, marketing, HR and other critical business partners to design purpose-driven communication initiatives aligned with short- and long-term business goals.

• Spearheaded global thought leadership platform focused on color innovation; garnered more than 150 stories and earned over $570K in media coverage.
• Instrumental in driving increased awareness of the newly rebranded $1.2B global mobility coatings business.
• Led communications strategy announcing new performance management system affecting 13K global employees.
• Successfully executed 15 global all-hands meetings for 13K employees in 2020; led content development for each session.
• Integral to developing communications strategy and execution of first-ever global employee opinion survey.

Appointed by Chief Communications Officer for newly created role serving as strategic advisor and overseeing enterprise-wide communication initiatives, annual planning/resource allocations and overall team operations/governance. Functioned as CCO’s liaison with various stakeholders ensuring team priorities aligned with organizational strategy and business goals. Recognized for helping to define new operational strategies that increased team efficiency.

• Established global, multi-channel content strategy for multiple businesses across 11 geographies.
• Oversaw award-winning M&A communication efforts; developed new corporate narrative, coordinated media outreach and engagement, created content strategy for integration intranet and coordinated/executed 75K person global townhall.
• Maintained above-average team engagement scores while centralizing communications function; streamlined initiatives resulting in 25% increase in productivity.
• Spearheaded development of updated talent management strategy across newly formed communications function.

Led global team for expatriate business providing strategic direction for communication programs that engaged and informed critical internal and external stakeholders. Served on global communications and business unit executive leadership teams; Served as communications lead for crisis/reputation management issues, including natural disasters, regulatory and other high-profile incidents.

• Successfully led and influenced matrixed team tasked with increasing brand awareness by 15% in key markets.
• Announced more than 30 new products and multiple market entries/expansions.
• Spearheaded year-long communication campaign focused on increasing understanding of customer health journeys and interactions with Cigna; campaign consistently achieved double-digit email open rates and a 6% online engagement increase.
• Created communication strategies for CEO of $5B business segment.
• Fostered beneficial relationships with critical media in various global markets.

Tapped by CMO six weeks after joining organization to lead Marcomms team for largest and most profitable business unit.

• Evolved team from siloed, individual contributors to collaborative, high-performing team; championing team growth by 50%.
• Optimized function resulting in significant efficiencies and eliminating duplicate work.
• Led rebranding communication efforts for business unit, carefully balancing implementation of updated brand guidelines globally and with local relevance.
• Strategic oversight of multiple agency and vendor relationships.

Executed strategic, multi-channel marketing plans delivering profitable new General Motors accounts and contributed to streamlined customer redemption process resulting in double-digit increase in customer activations.

Developed strategic PR plans to raise brand awareness in North America through various channels. Served as company spokesperson on controversial topics such as student marketing, security breaches and policy changes.

Developed PR plans for product launches and led the introduction of contactless payment functionality. Responsible for development of media monitoring platform to measure communications’ effectiveness.