CP Knowhow
Communications & PR
About Cynthia Powell
With nearly two decades of experience in communications, writing and media, Cynthia Powell is a big-picture strategic thinker and a guerrilla PR practitioner.Cynthia plans and leads corporate positioning and media campaigns that get the word out in ink, create blogger buzz, and put client spokespeople on radio and TV. She ghostwrites and places op-eds, letters to the editor, and news articles. She writes and develops brochures, websites, and reports for nonprofits, government agencies, and corporations large and small.
She recently returned from Haiti where she served as communications consultant to HelpAge International, the only international humanitarian relief organization focused exclusively on older people's needs and potential. She was on the ground during Month 2 of HelpAge's post-earthquake emergency relief operation.
As public relations director for U.S. News & World Report until early 2008, Cynthia started an in-house PR operation nearly from scratch, supervising an outside PR firm and hiring a full-time staff. During her tenure, national TV and radio news interviews of staff writers and editors increased by more than 50 percent. She oversaw six to eight national media campaigns a year for the magazine's "Bests" series. She created content and oversaw design for the magazine's first-ever online pressroom, www.usnews.com/pr.
In the Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa, Cynthia served as a community health volunteer in a rural village and then led communications efforts for the Niger office of a nongovernmental organization, Plan International.
Before Peace Corps, Cynthia worked for two international public relations firms in Washington, DC: Fleishman-Hillard and before that, APCO Associates over the course of seven years. At both firms, she played a key role in business development efforts and proposal writing in addition to managing client work. Prior to moving to Washington in 1996, Cynthia directed media relations for World Learning, a nonprofit international educational services and development organization based in Brattleboro, VT, and Washington.
She began her communications career as a daily reporter for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Lawrence, MA; the State House News Service, Boston, MA; the Times Record, Brunswick, ME; and an occasional freelancer for the New York Times and the Boston Phoenix.
Cynthia has a master of science in journalism from Boston University and a bachelor of arts in history from Brown University, where she graduated magna cum laude. She speaks fluent French and superior Spanish and Hausa. She volunteers as public relations chair of the DC Ad Club's ADDY awards committee and is a membership ambassador for the Public Relations Society of America.
