Best Practices for Brand Communications in Times of Uncertainty - Part II

Aisha leads public relations and communications for Brinker International, Inc. and its brands Chili’s® Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy®. During her tenure with Brinker, Aisha has led the alignment of internal and external communications creating meaningful storytelling for Brinker. She also transformed the public relations function from reactive communications to proactive storytelling that builds brand love and showcases personality. Aisha’s expertise includes internal communications, media relations, crisis/issues management, influencer relations and executive communications. Her secret sauce is her ability to build relationships coupled with a knack for understanding multiple viewpoints. This helps her think through the lens of her target audience and align stakeholders to reach a common goal regardless of the challenge.

With more than 20+ years of experience of leading traditional PR and social media campaigns for technology, advertising, marketing, media, entertainment, health, financial, and cannabis brands, John McCartney is a results-driven marketing communications executive with a stellar reputation and work ethic as one of the best PR professionals in the industry and someone you want to work with. John spent the last eight years working at Wise PR, an integrated marketing agency, rising from Director of Media Relations in the New York office to West Coast Managing Director, between San Francisco and Los Angeles. While he was in San Francisco, John immersed himself in the PR community by teaching a PR 101 class at General Assembly, serving as a PR mentor for several Silicon Valley tech accelerators, and also served on the PRSA San Francisco Chapter Board of Directors, most recently as President for the 300-member trade association of public relations professionals. John also serves as an advisor with Women Who Code, the global nonprofit dedicated to inspiring women to succeed in tech careers. 

Bill Zucker, a veteran of television journalism, leads Ketchum’s U.S food and agriculture industry team and is an expert in crisis communications. In his food sector role, Bill oversees the agency’s work with major food and agriculture brands and serves as an issues advisor to some of the top food and retail companies in North America. Bill has prepared media and reputation strategies for a variety of clients in the food, ingredients and agriculture space. Bill is a specialist in crisis management, handling issues including product liability, public accidents, food recalls, and class action litigation. Bill has led responses to high profile food and consumer product recalls of flour and pet food and has worked with scientists to explain complicated issues to the public ranging from animal health to toxicology. Bill was named PR News Crisis Communicator of the Year in 2005. During his 15-year career as a journalist, Bill worked as a producer, reporter and newsroom executive at five television stations and one radio station including WBBM-TV in Chicago and WABC-TV in New York, where he earned a regional Emmy for producing the documentary “Return to Vietnam.”