The London, U.K.-headquartered Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) – the world’s largest professional PR body representing more than 35,000 professionals in 70 countries worldwide – announced today that Mary Beth West, senior strategist of Knoxville-based Fletcher Marketing PR, has been appointed to its newly formed Global Advisory Board.
West – who also serves as co-chair of the PRCA’s Ethics Council – joins 12 other colleagues on the inaugural Global Advisory Board and is one of two U.S. citizens selected to serve.
According to the PRCA, its new Global Advisory Board aims to “provide strategic direction to the PRCA as it expands its footprint in established and emerging PR markets around the world.”
Stated PRCA Director General Francis Ingham of the new Global Advisory Board, “Individually, they are each globally-renowned industry pioneers. Collectively, they will turbocharge our international expansion and be a positive driving force for global PR.”
West has more than 25 years of public relations industry experience, including 15 years as the founding leader of her own public relations firm in East Tennessee, which she sold to Fletcher Marketing PR in 2018.
West’s insights on public relations and workforce issues have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, the USA Today Network, Business Insider, PRweek, PR News, The Public Relations Strategist and other business media. For two years in a row, West has authored the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) World PR Report’s North American Analysis on macro-issues and trends in the global PR agency business.
Regionally, West is a member of the First Horizon Bank Maryville Community Advisory Council, the Executive Women’s Association, and the boards of directors of the Blount Memorial Foundation, Nurture the Next, and the East Tennessee Foundation’s Blount Community Fund.
In 2013, she was named the University of Tennessee College of Communication & Information’s first Public Relations Alumna of the Year. West can be heard on Fletcher Marketing PR’s “Ms. InterPReted” podcast, which West co-hosts with Fletcher Marketing PR CEO Kelly Fletcher.
