Executive Vice President
Role: Media and analyst relations, PR execution
- Linda Seelman has more than 25 years of experience in strategic communications in both agency and corporate environments. She has helped B2B, B2C and technology companies – from Fortune 500 to start-ups – shape their image, build their brand and protect their reputation. She’s worked with some of the world’s most admired companies including AT&T, Compaq (now HP), Eastman Kodak, Emerson, IBM, Johnson Controls, Siemens and Xerox.
- She has expertise and passion for innovation and has provided client counsel on end-to-end PR and marketing campaigns for technology companies including ARM, Avaya, ClearForest, InfoVista, Informatica, Novell (now Micro Focus), NTT/Verio, Oz Communications (now part of Nokia), Siebel Systems (now part of Oracle), Riverbed, StorageTek and ViewSonic.
- Linda has served as a trusted advisor to C-level executives on all matters from brand launch to crisis management. She is skilled at building and marketing corporate brands, managing PR/public affairs programs, creating employee engagement campaigns that shape culture and drive performance, developing and implementing issues/crisis management efforts, serving as media strategist (digital and traditional), launching and re-positioning products, creating social responsibility/purpose platforms and developing corporate reputation programs to support business goals.
- She has subject-matter expertise in IoT/smart-home tech, STEM, autonomous driving, Big Data, manufacturing automation, applications, Cloud and cybersecurity.
- Linda drove the media strategy for her clients and corporate companies and secured national and trade publicity in The Huffington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CRN, Computerworld, InformationWeek, Wired and more. She has managed major technology and industry tradeshow activities (e.g. CES, CERAWeek, drupa, HIIMs, IBM Partnerworld, ITXPO, RSA, etc.) and built analyst relationships with Forrester Research, Gartner, IDC, Quocirca and others.
- Linda co-designed a well-known PR firm’s cybersecurity practice group and provided communication planning and response for more than a dozen large-scale cyberattacks and breaches. As a trained crisis communication counselor, she facilitated dozens of simulations, drills and media trainings to prepare leaders for security incidents. She also spearheaded reputation recovery communication and public affairs campaigns to re-establish trust and confidence among key stakeholders.
- Linda has helped companies hone their online brand voice and create digital campaigns through paid, owned and earned activations. She led a social media program for a global brand’s Chief Technology Officer that fueled 150% growth as a LinkedIn Influencer and saw a 3%+ engagement rating on Twitter, up from 1%.
- During her tenure at Xerox, Linda led 50+ product introductions and global announcements. She developed and implemented external communications strategies for Xerox senior leaders at the corporate, international and business levels. Linda managed PR pursuit for key customers including Boeing, Dow, P&G, and Marriott and led joint promotional initiatives with major partners such as Cisco, McAfee and others.
- At Xerox, she also helped to drive the strategy and deliver content for its global services storyline throughout the company’s corporate transformation pre- and post its major acquisition of ACS. She and her team secured major placements including cover and feature articles in Barron’s, BusinessWeek and Forbes and garnered more than 220 million media impressions.
- She served as the global operations lead for IBM and executed media strategy and product review program management for the company’s software and hardware businesses. She has also worked closely with company CEOs and senior executives on influencer and thought leadership campaigns. She designed and managed a robust contributed article program for Xerox, producing and placing 100+ technical and business bylined articles and case studies annually.
- Linda is a SABRE, Silver Anvil, Stevie and PR Week award winner and has served on the boards of Public Relations Society of America Rochester chapter and is a member of the Association for Women in Communication and International Association of Business Communicators. She holds a B.A. degree in communications, with a minor in marketing, from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY.