Nikki Richardson -- Principal

Nikki Richardson is an independent public relations consultant and seminar leader. She has nearly 30 years of experience in corporate public relations, product public relations, community relations, crisis communications management and journalism. Nikki has trained and counseled more than 3,500 businesspeople in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific. She has coached managers and senior executives in groups and privately in preparation for company, product and service launches; series financing rounds; Initial Public Offerings; legislative testimony; corporate expansion and downsizing; plant closings; litigation; product failures; product line phase-outs and labor and human capital issues. She is also a visiting lecturer in Public Relations at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

Prior to starting her practice in 1996, Nikki spent a decade at Digital Equipment Corporation where she was the manager of the Corporate Information Group. In that capacity, she managed a professional marketing and communications staff that served 19 functional areas that included Environment, Health and Safety; Legal; Security; Finance; Investor, Analyst and Community Relations; Advertising; Corporate Contributions; Manufacturing and Quality Assurance; Human Resources and others; and produced the company’s annual report. Her personal specialties included issues management, crisis communications management and senior executive counsel. She directly supported both company presidents Ken Olsen and Bob Palmer. In addition, she was the primary crisis spokesperson for the company. During her tenure, her special assignments included rotations in Silicon Valley and Ireland, and the management of all public communications for DECWORLD ’90, Digital’s premier marketing event. She earned two awards from the company for communications excellence.

Earlier in her career, Nikki was vice president for Community Relations at Milton Medical Center and director of Community Relations at St. Joseph’s Hospital, both in Massachusetts. While practicing healthcare marketing and public relations, she earned a communications excellence award for community outreach from the New England Hospital Public Relations Association.

Before that, she worked for JG Associates, a full-service advertising agency, where she specialized in producing multi-media projects for the agency and its clients, and was the media production specialist for the Chelmsford Public School System where she was responsible for design and production coordination of all school system publications, audio visual production and instruction in media production for the staff and students in grades K-12. She has also been a journalist for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and a feature reporter and photographer for two newspaper chains, Beacon Publications and MassMusic Publications.

Nikki holds a Bachelor’s degree with distinction in Communications and English from Simmons College in Boston. She is an elected member of Academy, the college’s honor society for scholars.

Joe Roy -- Trainer

Joe Roy has trained more than 1,100 managers and executives of high-technology companies in the United States and Europe. He has authored or co-authored four communications training handbooks. Joe has 31 years of experience in communications, nearly all of it in technology-based industries. Specifically, he spent 17 years in corporate and product public relations, both in corporations and agencies.

Joe is an independent seminar leader and speech writer. In the last 19 years, he has written more than 250 major speeches and coached senior managers in their delivery at large and small companies in North America, Europe and Australia. Among the companies he has served are Computervision, Digital Equipment Corporation, Honeywell, Kellogg Company, Lotus Development Corporation, MCI and Nestle Chocolate.

Chet Urban -- Videographer

Chet Urban is a seasoned video production professional with 20 years of experience at the network, corporate and major market level. He has shot and edited news and feature footage for WHDH-TV in Boston, WLNE-TV in Providence and WSMW-TV in Worcester.

In addition, as an independent videographer, Chet has produced, filmed, edited and developed network and affiliate broadcast segments, corporate communications projects, interactive programs, commercials and documentaries for a variety of clients including CBS News, 60 Minutes, PBS, BBC, Digital Equipment Corporation, Lotus Development Corporation, New England Life Insurance and Massachusetts Electric.

NIKKI RICHARDSON STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
THREE LANCASTER AVENUE, CHELMSFORD MA 01824
Phone 978.256.1651-- Fax 978.256.0751