Ragan’s High Ladies in Communications Awards is considered one of our most prestigious packages, saluting the ladies who embody the previous, current and way forward for the self-discipline; whose improvements have the ability to form workplaces and worker expertise; and whose efforts attain throughout their organizations and much past.

Annually, we honor dozens of communicators, however solely three be a part of our Corridor of Fame. The inductees into the 2024 High Ladies in Communications Corridor of Fame aren’t simply professionals, however forces of affect that essentially uplift the best way we work together with and uplift each other. Their intensive expertise and unmatched experience set them aside as champions to be emulated.

This 12 months, Ragan is honored to induct:

Susan Donlan

Chief Communications Officer at KeyCorp

Marian Salzman

Senior Vice President & Chief Company Citizenship Officer, U.S., at Philip Morris Worldwide

Kathy Krenger

former Chief Communications Officer at The Kraft Heinz Firm

These leaders and the remainder of the High Ladies in Communications, Class of 2024, will likely be honored at a luncheon in New York Metropolis on Feb. 29, 2024. Learn on to be taught concerning the monumental affect they’ve made on communications and the world.

Susan Donlan: The calm within the storm

Over the course of her profession, Susan Donlan’s affect and affect has blazed the path for ladies within the banking business, during which a overwhelming majority of management and board roles are nonetheless held by males.At present chief communications officer at KeyCorp, a monetary companies firm with belongings of roughly $189 billion and greater than 17,000 staff, Donlan launched her profession working with the federal government of Canada in analysis and worldwide coverage, in addition to advising a number of ministers. She went on to serve within the Canada Income Company and the Workplace of the Minister of Labor and Housing, laying the inspiration of her communications profession.

At T.D. Financial institution, Donlan used her capacity to construct rapport and relationships to lean additional into company communications, mastering inner and exterior communications, government communications, media relations and disaster communications whereas ascending via the ranks to the put up of vice chairman in 10 years.

“I’ve at all times valued the power to hear — actively hear,” Donlan informed Ragan. “You be taught a lot whenever you hearken to how persons are saying issues, what they’re sharing with you and the way they really feel about it. It connects you along with your viewers and helps you perceive them. That makes you a greater communicator.”

In 2018, Donlan relocated to america to hitch KeyBank as chief communications officer in Cleveland, Ohio. As soon as there, Donlan made sweeping adjustments to the company communications staff, together with establishing a management staff and affording senior members of her staff with improvement and management alternatives. Since then, she has led the staff via worldwide crises and historic challenges to the banking business.

One problem, in fact, was the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit shortly after a CEO transition. Donlan developed a repute for being the “calm within the storm,” steadily main her staff via the pandemic whereas making certain all KeyBank stakeholders have been supported. Her efforts included a complete inner and exterior plan, client aid, small enterprise and Paycheck Safety Program help and continued help locally.

Then got here the collapse of Silicon Valley Financial institution and Signature Financial institution in March 2023. The 2 largest financial institution failures since 2008 despatched shockwaves via the business, particularly for regional establishments like KeyBank. Donlan mobilized the staff with an motion plan that equipped staff with important info, making certain that shoppers remained assured in KeyBank’s power and stability. She additionally addressed quite a few media inquiries and positioned CEO Chris Gorman as KeyBank’s voice within the public.

“I’ve discovered how necessary it’s to be the voice of calm throughout the chaos — even when I’m not feeling that calm on the within,” Donlan stated. “Expertise has taught me to deal with how we transfer ahead and out of the disaster as a substitute of worrying about how we acquired there. There’s at all times time to mirror again and decide how you can be taught from a scenario as soon as the disaster passes, not from a blame perspective, however from the angle of how we are able to do higher.”

An lively participant in KeyBank’s formal mentoring program, Donlan is concerned within the Cleveland neighborhood, serving as a director on the Cleveland Museum of Pure Historical past Board and as a member of the Cuyahoga County Public Library Basis Board.

“The sector has modified a lot since I started my profession,” she mirrored to Ragan. “The day of prose memos is lengthy gone — you want to have the ability to package deal your content material in small, digestible items, specializing in what you actually need the viewers to know.  This is usually a actual problem if you end up coping with advanced info — the power to synthesize complexity is a extra necessary talent than ever for communicators.”

She advises different communicators to decelerate and take time to understand the place they’re and what they’re engaged on. “I used to be at all times in such a rush to get to the following factor, like I used to be operating out of time,” she stated. “As an alternative of specializing in the following alternative or position, now I actually attempt to take pleasure in all the issues I get to do and be taught day by day in my present position.”

Marian Salzman: Redefining the long run

Marian Salzman’s profession has at all times centered on the long run — and she or he has constantly formed that future. Within the early Nineteen Nineties, when the web was nonetheless thought of the area of nerds, she based the world’s first cybersecurity consultancy — holding on-line focus teams by way of her startup, American Dialogue, also called Cyberdialogue.

It’s no exaggeration to name her a cultural icon: she helped introduce the phrase “metrosexuality” to the world in 2003, sparking a world media frenzy that finally resulted in “metrosexual” being named Phrase of the Yr.

“Individuals radar issues loads,” Salzman informed Ragan. “You’ll be able to accomplish something whenever you encompass your self with one of the best folks, and whenever you work for and with people who find themselves smarter than you might be, and who share your dedication to nice work, and good enjoyable.”

And Salzman was a driving drive behind #GivingTuesday, which inspires customers to offset the gluttony of Black Friday and Cyber Monday by serving to others and elevating tens of billions of {dollars} for neighborhood packages.

In a PR profession spanning three a long time, Salzman has served as CEO of Havas PR North America and chair of the Havas International PR Collective. In 2016 she moved to Philip Morris Worldwide (PMI) as senior vice chairman, international communications, to assist the corporate ship a smoke-free future.

Salzman guides PMI’s communications, media and different stakeholder engagement, forging productive alliances with NGOs, advocacy teams, policymakers and others. The tip purpose: making it simpler for grownup people who smoke to maneuver away from cigarettes and towards the higher science-based options now obtainable.

Utilizing her international platform to fight misinformation, promote transparency and advance constructive change, Salzman sparks conversations round necessary points by way of her annual traits report, e-newsletter and PMI whitepapers — together with “Hate Is within the Air,” a report that dissects the drivers of hate and challenges firms to contribute to options.

She says curiosity and vitality are an important abilities for communicators. “If you happen to aren’t in steady studying mode, you’ll rapidly be left behind.” She lives out that recommendation herself: Salzman informed Ragan that she was taking distant programs in authorities at Johns Hopkins College when the pandemic started. “This engagement gave me an entire lot of brainfood at a time when socialization was largely screen-based. I developed appreciable experience by going again to high school thirty-odd years after I had accomplished my formal training, and this made me a significantly better chief {and professional}. Studenting additionally knocked any vanity I had proper out of my system.”

As a commentator for a variety of worldwide and nationwide media retailers, Salzman has been featured on the BBC, NBC Information, Euronews, Sky Information and Bloomberg Radio, in addition to podcasts like Andrew Yang’s “Ahead.” She additionally commonly serves as a keynote speaker or panelist at such venues as GWPR VOICE, IAA Creativity 4 Higher Convention, College of Notre Dame’s Mendoza School of Enterprise and extra, and is the writer or co-author of 18 books.

Her recommendation to rising communicators: “Go overseas often, work there feverishly, savor the friendships you made within the early days as a result of on the finish of a profession, it’s the expertise gathering, the human relationships, that carry you ahead and make you higher and extra capable of face the challenges day-to-day. I additionally want I had turn out to be hooked on Pilates earlier, had embraced informal costume sooner, and would have dreamed as huge as life carried me. I at all times treasured the journey and picked bosses however by no means deliberate my profession, so I want I might have recognized how fortunate I might be — that will have made it simpler to chill out extra, to fret much less, and to trust that I might by no means should compromise ‘me’ to succeed on this planet of ‘we.’”

Kathy Krenger: Iconic work for iconic manufacturers

In 2021, as Kraft Heinz was navigating one of the crucial seen transformations of the last decade, its CEO determined to rebuild the corporate’s communications staff from the bottom up. The particular person he chosen to steer that staff was Kathy Krenger, prompted by her stellar management as senior vice chairman of worldwide communications at Hyatt Motels Company, the place she guided the hospitality model via considered one of its most difficult durations amid pandemic lockdowns.

“I additionally watched as our whole business collapsed in a matter of days,” Krenger stated of her expertise at Hyatt. “Even now, once I look again at how unstable these first few months have been, I can hardly imagine it was actual. However the work we have been doing then was important, crucial, even ground-breaking. Individuals wanted our communications. They wanted the data we created to outlive. And typically, the content material we have been growing was the one factor giving them hope. I do know this sounds just a little dramatic in the present day, however in that on the spot it was true.”

Constructing upon that have, Krenger joined Kraft Heinz as chief communications officer. Her activity: Take what had been a small help perform throughout the firm and create a best-in-class international heart of communications to function a strategic companion to the enterprise.

Two main initiatives display Krenger’s work boosting Kraft Heinz’s repute:

From 2022 to 2023, Krenger’s staff elevated annual company media protection outcomes by 265%. As well as, detrimental information protection decreased to 9% (down from 31% in 2021), with 91% of media protection constructive to impartial. Kraft Heinz ranked No. 28 within the 2023 Axios Harris “100 Fame Rankings,” shifting up the checklist from 2022 (and never making the checklist in any respect in 2021).

And when staff reported feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from one another and their leaders. In response, Krenger’s communications staff launched a brand new, mobile-enabled engagement platform, “The Vine,” to ship well timed and simply accessible info to the corporate’s 37,000 staff. Up to now, 97% of customers have engaged on the platform, and a latest worker survey confirmed that 80% of respondents have larger belief in info coming from the corporate.

She informed Ragan that an underrated high quality for communicators to grasp is the power to “learn the room… and pivot the dialog based mostly on somebody’s preferences or want for readability. It’s simple to neglect that you might have spent the final two weeks centered on this matter, however your viewers has not. They want time to soak up, ask questions and perceive how this dialog or matter impacts them and if you’ll be able to see their pause as a possibility convey them alongside on the journey, be comforted by your understanding of all sides of the difficulty, you’ll have a companion and advocate slightly than a detractor.”

She additionally touted the significance of writing abilities. “Now greater than ever, phrases matter,” she stated. “Related to phrases, I imagine the power to affect is a crucial talent for communicators. Senior communicators will typically discover themselves being the one particular person within the room with a opposite place. With the ability to clarify your place with out sounding like a dream killer is vital.”

Due to Krenger’s efforts, the staff in the present day consists of 55 inner and exterior communication professionals throughout 15 international locations. The staff manages inner and exterior communications media relations, government thought management, disaster and points administration, artistic content material technology and rather more for the corporate.

“In an period the place every thing is about repute administration, and the place there are pitfalls and alternatives at each flip, [Krenger] has elevated the communications perform to be a go-to companion to information firm actions that span far past conventional communications practices,” says Alex Abraham, vice chairman, international company communications and repute administration at Kraft Heinz.

“Know your self so you’ll be able to imagine in your self,” Krenger advises. “I spent far an excessive amount of time lamenting as to why I wasn’t the star of or one of the best at X, Y or Z. I want I had actually leaned into my strengths extra, stopped worrying about different folks and what they have been doing and discovered how you can use my strengths as my superpower.”

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