An international team. Understanding your needs from every angle. The executives of Consort Partners approach public relations and social media from all sides.
Dominic co-founded Consort Partners in 2004, having hired and fired many PR agencies while at News Corporation, Autonomy, and Channel Four TV.
Kathy got her feet wet in PR when she was the founding voice for Blinkx.tv and garnered unprecedented international press coverage for the company, appearing in TV, print, blogs and radio.
Andrea's experience of the PR business comes from working with international clients at both East and West Coast agencies. Andrea's passion for PR is matched by her compassion: she has been actively involved in the rebuilding of New Orleans post-Katrina and is equally passionate about Detroit's inner city regeneration.
David has worked around the world at some of the hottest companies around, so he could do some serious name-dropping, but that's not his style. He's disarming in his charm, but his knowledge and insight is legendary.
Heddi is our resident Krav Maga martial arts master and high-energy PR and social media evangelist. She knows how to defend herself and her clients with her blazing fast response times and ability to span international times zones in a single bound.
Mark also knows what it's like to deal with the press, as he himself was a journalist for many years, most recently as the Arts & Entertainment Correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News.
Paul approaches PR and marketing like his favorite sport, rock climbing. Ain't no mountain high enough to ruffle his feathers. When you've hung off a cliff by your fingertips, you also learn how to keep your cool with deadlines that have moved forward, live demos that crash, and entrepreneurs who might be a bit nervous in interviews.
Key Players
Dominic Johnson - Co-founder
Dominic's record as a business innovator and marketer has been evidenced in a number of companies, from internationally renowned companies like News Corp, to technology companies like Autonomy and Blinkx. Primarily working to effect change in revenues and profile, he took Autonomy from an obscure 4-person neural-networking startup to a global publicly-traded company generating over $300 million in annualized revenues. His experience in the financial circles include public transactions on the LSE, Nasdaq and AIM, as well as serving as trendscouting and executive advisor to leading VC and hedge funds. Additionally, he has spearheaded several successful M&A projects with an impressive portfolio of US and European companies, both publicly and privately held.
Dominic has a long history in management and marketing in media, technology and advertising companies. He was a founder of the multimedia divisions of both News Corp and Channel Four Television. Additionally, he has guided companies from obscurity to international headlines, his positioning work has garnered leading coverage in TV and print media venues, from the BBC, CBS, WSJ, FT, amongst others.
Kathy Johnson - Co-founder
Kathy's evangelism of disruptive technologies has garnered global media attention including appearances in international TV (BBC, CNBC, CNN, CBS), newspapers (The Sunday Times, The Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Daily Mail, Die Welt), radio (BBC, NPR, Bayerischer Rundfunk), and business and lifestyle magazines (Fast Company, Red Herring, Woman).
Her pioneering ventures include co-founding blinkx.tv, the world's first video search engine; Firefly, where she developed the international channel and distribution strategy before it was acquired by Microsoft; and the introduction of online loyalty, where Kathy was pivotal in the creation of international strategies for companies including Bertelsmann, Vivendi-Universal, BT and Dentsu. She was voted "2004 Agenda Setter" by www.silicon.com alongside Apple's Steve Jobs, eBay's Meg Whitman, and Chinese Premier Hu Jintao. She has also been named a finalist for the Stevie Awards for Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award 2008.
Kathy has also served as a consultant to Prime Minister Koizumi and has been closely involved with Japan's first inbound tourism campaign, "Yokoso Japan," as well as Japan's FDI (foreign direct investment) strategies with the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry.
Her hobbies include running (she BQ'd at the New York Marathon 2010 and hopes to run the Boston Marathon in 2012), painting, social media and all forms of technology, volunteering for Hospice by the Bay, and occasionally modeling and acting.
Andrea Heuer
Andrea Heuer is a seasoned media communications specialist with more than 14 years of public relations experience, providing advice, counsel and program execution to technology and consumer businesses. Specialties include message development, corporate positioning, product and company launches, media relations and event management for industries such as enterprise software, mobile and wireless, semiconductor, Web 2.0, LBS, gaming, smart grid, social media, video and search. Recent clients include Aardvark, Dimdim, GridNet, InMobi, NVIDIA, Symbian and Viewdle. In her previous life, Andrea was media strategy director with LEWIS PR and has held account lead positions with Bite Communications, Write Image and Golin Harris.
During her career, she has been instrumental in the launch of several start-ups including Become.com, Browster and YadaYada, as well as divisions of established companies such as Charles Schwab and its PocketBroker service. Other major clients include Airgo, Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, King, Kyte.tv, Linden Lab, Metaplace, ShareThis, Ubicom, IronPort, Topix, Veodia, Western Multiplex and XING.
Andrea's passion is media relations and maintaining close ties with editors and writers from key business, technology and trade outlets and blogs such as AFP, Bloomberg/BusinessWeek, CBS, CIO, Dow Jones, Economist, Financial Times, Fortune, GigaOm, InformationWeek, Network World, NPR, PC Magazine, Reuters, ReadWriteWeb, USA Today, TechCrunch, Technology Review, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal and Wired to name a few.
In 2004, Andrea traded her city slicker life in NYC for glorious hiking and biking in the surrounding San Francisco natural wonders. Dare devil she is not, but she has been known to go open water diving with sharks. Slower paced favorite past times include cooking, eating and of course, sampling local beers and wines. Her vice – any of Haribo's gummi products!
David Oro
David has over a decade of well-rounded domestic and international experience specializing in strategic business communications, media relations, and corporate communications for high-growth, hardware, software, and telecommunications companies. Prior to consulting, he was a Vice President at Fleishman-Hillard servicing clients such as Nortel Networks, Openwave, SK Telecom, Level 3, and Brocade Communications among others. His in-house experience included work at Openwave Systems, where he led PR for the client software group and developer relations, and Embarcadero Technologies, a maker of database administration tools. He has also counseled non-technology clients including the law firm Baker & McKenzie, the British Council, the Embassy of Greece in Beijing, and the Government of Mongolia. He has worked in the United States, Hong Kong, and Beijing.
Heddi Cundle
Heddi has worked and lived in London, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. With over 15 years' experience in consumer PR, marketing, social media, promotions and events, Heddi's credentials include: Maxwell's Restaurants (largest independent restaurant group); Guards Polo Club (world's leading polo club); CME (Ronald Lauder's first commercial TV & radio station in Eastern Europe) and Pasta Pomodoro (largest contemporary Italian restaurant chain in California).
Specific achievements include: co-establishing the world's largest 'flair' bottle throwing competition at Roadhouse, London; organizing the annual launch of the Polo season event attracting all major global polo players; overseeing full creative for Bill Wyman's Sticky Fingers restaurant and organizing the annual anniversary celebrity party; heading up creative for the first ever global 'soundclash – battle of the bands' in 13 countries simultaneously; heading up creative for the 'Aura-Stars' exhibition in London, generating nationwide coverage & back-to-back features on Channel 4's Big Breakfast Show, UK.
Mark de la Viña
Mark de la Viña is a former arts, entertainment and style reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, where he was also a podcaster, videocaster and blogger. In his 20 years as a staff writer for major metropolitan daily newspapers, Mark also covered TV in the fourth largest media market for the Philadelphia Daily News, as well as InStyle Magazine, Satellite Orbit, and the Orange County Register. His articles have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, American Demographics, and Latina. Mark’s writing has inspired the names of at least two punk rock groups, and as a current member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and former member of the Television Critics Association, he has lots of photos and stories of celebs ranging from Martin Scorsese to Paris Hilton.
Paul Brady
Paul is a senior communications professional with experience representing clients in the consumer, gaming, web 2.0, and mobile industries. Paul has been successful in leading campaigns for start-ups in niche markets as well as major publicly-traded companies spanning various verticals. Some of his clients have included King, USA Network, Amuso, Vollee, Nike, Kodak, reQall, Motorola, Symbian, SmarTrust, Trovix, NileGuide, coComment and others. Prior to joining Consort, Paul has previously worked with Fusion PR, Fleishman Hillard, Waggener Edstrom, and EnviroMedia. Aside from scaling the heights of the communications industry, Paul is also a passionate rock climber. He climbs during the week at the gym and on the weekends at local and destination climbing spots, his passion sees him hanging (literally) out on mountains and crags around the world.