Communications Symposium

When: Tuesday, Sept. 22
Registration 7:45 - 8:15 a.m.
Keynote: 8:30 a.m.
Where: UNC Charlotte Dubois Center

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

	What Will Break Your Brand Next? The Reputational Risks You're Not Ready For Featuring: Brent Gambill - Managing Director of Track Communications at NASCAR Gambill will explore the emerging threats reshaping communications, including: volatile public opinion, politicized backlash, AI-driven narratives, declining institutional trust. You'll learn how to anticipate new threats, respond with discipline and credibility, and strengthen trust through preparation and leadership.
	Reputation Resilience Redefined Featuring: James Donnelly - EVP, Issues & Crisis at M Booth Communications Strengthening, protecting and restoring reputation may be more difficult today than any other time in history. Why? M Booth analyzed the communications industry's current, most relevant research related to trust and reputation. What emerged were five key trends that outline the main challenges to corporate reputation in 2026 and beyond: Public trust in institutions / leaders is plunging. "Truth" is becoming subjective, personal and increasingly false. Demonstrable, principled leadership appears to be in recession. Brash divisiveness is prevalent. There's growing distrust of Gen A.I. and its effects. This presentation will discuss strategies to address each of the concurrent trends above. In addition, we'll cover the most important shift, which is structural: organizations must stop treating crisis/reputation management as a reactive endeavor.

Breakout Session #1

Trust by Design: How Communicators Lead AI Governance Before It Becomes a Brand Problem
Featuring: Philip Tate, APR, Fellow PRSA & Eliot Mizrachi of Kadima Strategies

AI is reshaping our world, fast. Many organizations are embracing it without their communications teams in the room when the critical decisions get made. The reputational risk isn't hypothetical. This interactive workshop positions communicators as the trust architects their organizations need, empowered to lead upward, set practical guardrails and protect brand credibility while AI adoption accelerates. Attendees will leave with a concrete leadership toolkit: a framework for briefing executives on AI risk and a fast pre-launch pressure test for influence-driven communications. Regardless of your fluency with AI use, understanding and advising on the risks and opportunities, with stakeholder trust as a lens, will be the communicator's superpower in this coming AI age. This session is applicable whether you're in-house, agency, nonprofit or government - anywhere AI is shaping messages, journeys or stakeholder interactions.

Finding Your Voice & Leading Through Influence
Featuring: Gina Sheridan - Chief Communications & Advocacy Officer at CRVA

The role of communications has changed dramatically over the past three decades. Today's communications leaders are expected to do far more than manage media relations or tell an organization's story. They are strategic advisors, trusted counselors and business leaders who help shape decisions before they are ever communicated. Drawing on nearly 30 years of leading marketing and communications, Gina Sheridan shares honest stories about setbacks, career pivots, finding your voice and leading through influence. Attendees will gain actionable strategies to strengthen their leadership, expand their influence and create greater value for their organizations. Whether you're early in your career or already leading a communications team, this session will challenge you to think differently about what it means to lead in today's communications profession.

From Crisis to Community Movement: How Strategic Communications Can Mobilize Communities into Action
Featuring: Adrien Lake

Communications professionals are increasingly called upon to lead conversations around complex and emotionally charged issues where trust, transparency and community engagement are essential. In these environments, traditional messaging alone is rarely enough to move audiences from awareness to meaningful action.

This session introduces the ACT Framework; Awareness, Credibility and Transformation, a strategic communications model designed to help communicators mobilize communities around critical public issues. Drawing from the development of a grassroots community violence intervention initiative, attendees will explore how authentic community narratives, media engagement and cross-sector partnerships can build credibility and inspire participation. In just three community activations, the initiative highlighted in this case study has helped facilitate the removal of a cumulative total of more than 2,000 firearms and high-powered rounds of ammunition from communities. Attendees will leave with a replicable communications framework for turning crisis-driven moments into sustained community action, and a practical method for managing high-stakes messaging and maintaining trust during complex community initiatives.

 

Breakout Session #2

Elements of a Winning Silver Anvil Entry
Featuring: Megan Miles - Corporate Communications Manager at Duke Energy, Paige Layne - Manager Corporate Communications & Community Relations at National Gypsum Company, and Clare Cook - Associate Director of PR at lūquire, moderated by Samantha Story, Chief Communications Officer at Holy Angels

Hear a moderated panel of PRSA Charlotte members on what makes a winning Silver Anvil campaign. Since 1944, the Silver Anvil has been awarded to the best strategic public relations campaigns of the year, as well as outstanding organizational excellence. Each panelist has earned multiple Silver Anvil wins across a variety of categories, including Integrated Communications, Events, Community Relations, Influencer Relations and Internal Communications. Together, they will share their lessons learned on how to craft a submission that meets the judges' strict criteria, and the strategy behind their winning campaigns!

Wired to Wise - What Pressure Does to Really Smart Leaders
Featuring: Josee Madison - Speaker, Innovator & Entrepreneur

Josee Madison has spent much of her career in environments where decisions carry real consequences. From supporting a federal judge to managing artists and tours in the music industry to leading a wellness business through the pandemic, pressure was never optional. PR professionals operate in environments where pressure is constant. Tight deadlines, competing priorities, public scrutiny, crisis situations, and highstakes communication require sound judgment when emotions and stress are running high. Through her concept of Wired Armor Mode (WAM™), she will give a practical way to recognize when fight-or-flight responses are influencing their communication, decision-making, and leadership. Participants will learn how to recognize the protective patterns that can narrow perspective, impact relationships, and influence
professional judgment.

Using video to strategically to solve real organizational challenges
Featuring: Kim Brattain - CEO at Kim Brattain Media

Anyone can make a video, but not every video connects with the audience. What is the mystery behind a video that works, and a video people simply tune out? (The answer is simpler than you think.) In this presentation, Kim will explore how to create mission-driven videos that people actually watch and that advance your organization's purpose. We'll break down the simple formula behind effective video storytelling, including how structure (beginning, middle, end) shapes emotional impact. Participants will walk out with a practical "project starter" framework to organize ideas before production begins. We'll also explore what makes stories resonate, what causes viewers to disengage, and how to refine a concept before investing in resources. Participants will then leave with a practical "how-to" guide and a clear path to creating more strategic, compelling, and mission-centered videos.

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The PRessure Chamber™ Is Going LIVE. 

For the 2026 PRSA Fall Symposium, we're taking The PRessure Chamber™ out of the virtual world and into a live tabletop exercise, in collaboration with the UNC Charlotte Department of Emergency Management.

Join us from 1 - 3 p.m. as an add-on experience to the Symposium.

No Zoom screen to hide behind.
No "you're on mute."
No easy outs.

Just a crisis, a room full of communicators, and the pressure to make the right call.

The PRessure Chamber™ is going live. The pressure is on.

Sponsored by: