Kelley Chunn
I am the founder and principal of Kelley Chunn & Associates, an award-winning 30-year-old state-certified, collaborative PR & Marketing consultancy based in Boston. We provide culturally smart strategies to promote social change with a focus on equity, inclusion, civic engagement and community outreach. My journey has taken me from Boston to New York, to Nigeria and the White House. There I joined other community and business leaders to advise then-President Barack Obama on small business and economic development. I am grateful to have been recognized by my colleagues with the Public Relations Society of America’s Boston Chapter Diane Davis “Beacon” Award and the Public Relations Club “Bell Ringer” Award for lifetime achievement.
Despite the turmoil and disruption in our world today, if you have the chance to work overseas, take it. Living and working in the west African country of Nigeria was life-changing. It inspired me and gave me the courage to strike out on my own and start my consulting business. It also opened me up to the vocation of teaching which is a great way to learn from others.
Ethan Sobel
Ethan completed his master’s degree at Boston University from the College of Communication, bachelor’s degree at the University of Massachuestts-Amherst Honors College, and certificate in nonprofit executive leadership at Indiana University. In a full-time capacity, Ethan serves as the BU Hillel Executive Director, overseeing the departments of communication, marketing, student engagement, and fundraising. Ethan has been recognized nationally for his steadfast leadership and organizational turnaround of BU Hillel, a campus-wide organization with 30,000 attendances from BU students annually. These include being awarded the Exemplar of Excellence by Hillel International’s CEO, the highest recognition given to a Hillel field professional out of more than 1,000 pros; named BU Advisor of the Year by the Dean of Students; selected as 1-of-10 in the country for the Accelerate Executive Training Program by Hillel International; and given the honor of delivering a Hillel “Ted” Talk to 1,000+ colleagues in 2019 at the Hillel Global Assembly.
Prior to BU, Ethan worked in communication and administrative capacities at MIT, UMass Amherst, and at two small educational nonprofits. Ethan serves/served on the Board of Directors for UMass Hillel, Big Brothers Big Sisters Young Professionals Board of Eastern Massachusetts, the Boston University Jewish Cultural Endowment, and FLAG (Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Flag Football. Ethan is also an adjunct professor at both the Boston University College of Communication and at Lasell University. He is also a cellist in the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra.
Shannon Dooling
Shannon Dooling is an investigative reporter in Boston. Her work can be found on WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, and nationally with ProPublica and NPR. Her reporting focuses primarily on immigration and criminal justice.
In 2019, she broke the national news story about the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle a humanitarian immigration process designed to allow seriously ill immigrants to stay in the U.S. for medical treatment. The process was reinstated following Congressional hearings.
Her reporting has won several Edward R. Murrow awards, including awards for continuing coverage and investigative reporting. In 2022, she was part of the team recognized with the National Headliner Award and the AAJA Excellence in Investigative Reporting award for their series on civil asset forfeiture in Massachusetts.
She’s also part of the team researching how race factors into mass and prolonged detention of immigrants, a project funded through BU’s Center for Antiracist Research.
John Baynard
A two-time recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Award in Journalism, John Baynard is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and photojournalist based in Boston. The direction of his work has predominantly dealt with social issues with a sharp focus on homelessness and refugees.
His introduction to journalism was delivering newspapers for The Charlotte Observer at the age of sixteen. Four years later he started work for WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina as a news cameraman and editor, while also working at The Charlotte Observer as a sports photographer. He went to work in Boston at WBZ-TV as chief cinematographer and editor in the Public Affairs Department before becoming freelance as a cinematographer, producer, director, editor, and photojournalist.
Over the past forty years, Baynard has worked for PBS, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and various broadcast and independent documentary projects: His work includes working as a director of photography on PBS Frontline documentaries that include Murder on the Rio San Juan, When Cops Go Bad, The Noriega Connection, Don King Unauthorized, The Old Man and the Storm, and Secret Daughter (director, co-producer, and cinematographer).
He worked as the producer, cinematographer, and editor on ABC News Nightline documentaries that include Rick Pitrone: 1958-1994, Maine Country Doctor, Street Doctors, and Making a Difference in Southern Sudan.
Other work ranges from director of photography on the PBS American Experience documentaries; Henry Ford, Walt Disney, The Gilded Age, and Billy Graham to field story cameraman for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Through his non-profit World Witness Project, Baynard has produced, shot and edited stories for Global Post about life in Myanmar under the military junta, reports for Refugees International about internally displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and stories of children affected by the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka for UNICEF.
Since 2011, he has taught visual storytelling and multimedia journalism in the Journalism Department at the Boston University College of Communication.
Additional awards include: twenty-two New England Emmys, five Boston Press Photographer Association’s TV Photographer of the Year Awards, a National Emmy, and a DuPont-Columbia Award.
Juliet Pennington
Juliet Pennington is an award-winning journalist who is a regular contributor to the Boston Globe, as well as a correspondent for People magazine. Other magazines for which she writes include VegNews, New England Living, Boston Spirit, South Shore Home, Life & Style, and Boston Magazine. She has interviewed several presidents/presidential candidates, and hundreds of celebrities including Elton John, Tom Brady, Anthony Bourdain, Rihanna, Robert De Niro, Mark Ruffalo, Billie Jean King, Jennifer Garner, David Beckham, and Mark Wahlberg. Pennington has also reported on high-profile celebrity events from Jennifer Lawrence’s wedding in Newport, RI, to Taylor Swift’s Fourth of July bash in Westerly, RI, and covered the “Varsity Blues” college cheating scandal, as well as WNBA player Brittney Griner’s arrest in Russia for People magazine and People.com. Pennington is also a travel writer and has been a guest speaker at numerous travel showcase events. And while she will always maintain an interest in travel and celebrity culture, Pennington focuses much of her professional and personal life on animal welfare and environmental issues.
Pennington believes that being an effective communicator is important in all aspects of life, but especially in the professional realm. She takes pride in teaching and mentoring the next generation of journalists, as well as students entering other disciplines in the communication field.
Kait Walsh
Kait Walsh as an Emmy-award winning news anchor and reporter with over a decade of experience in markets across New England. Kait has reported on the field at the Super Bowl to the Rose Garden at the White House. Her speciality is reporting live in breaking news, such as in the middle of a shootout, feet away from large fires, blizzards and contentious political Election Nights.
Kait is the weekend morning anchor and weekday morning reporter (by choice!) at WPRI-12 in Providence, RI She previously was the weekday morning anchor at WWLP-22News in Springfield, MA and was a producer and MMJ at WCSH-6 in Portland, Maine. In college, she worked as an associate producer at NECN in Boston.
Kait graduated with Bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and Political Science from Boston University.
She lives in Southcoast Massachusetts with her husband, son and daughter.
There will always be a need for our profession, but how the news is absorbed is change. It’s exciting to be at the forefront of what’s next!
Jay Roewe
Jay Roewe is Senior Vice President, Production Planning & Incentives at HBO/HBO MAX based in Culver City, CA. He helps manage the physical production planning of HBO and HBO MAX films, limited series, and scripted series filmed all over the world. He also manages the film & tv incentives both domestically and internationally for all productions produced by HBO and HBO MAX.
Roewe joined HBO in 1994, originally serving as Vice President of Production for HBO Pictures. In 2000, he began overseeing the miniseries division as well until 2010 when he was promoted to Head of Physical Production at HBO for all Television scripted original productions. Roewe has been involved with programs ranging from Real Time with Bill Maher to Game Of Thrones.
Jay is a 40-plus year veteran of film and television production, with experience ranging from news, documentaries, music videos, concerts, & commercials to television movies, mini-series, and theatrical releases.
Roewe is a member of the DGA (Director’s Guild of America), the PGA (Producer’s Guild America), the ATAS (Academy of Television Arts and Sciences) and BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television)
As a graduate of Boston University where he studied Television Production & Business, Jay now sits on the Board of Overseers for the University as well as the Board of Advisors for the College of Communication.
In 2019 Jay was given a Doctor of Letters Honorary Degree from Ulster University for his services to the Screen Industry in Northern Ireland for his work on Game of Thrones.
Colleen McCreary
Colleen McCreary is the Chief People, Places and Publicity Officer at Credit Karma. As the first person to hold this position, she is responsible for Credit Karma’s People, Workplace Services, Communications and Events teams. In this role, Colleen leverages both internal and external communications functions to foster a healthy workplace culture, drive long term value for the business and position the company competitively in the market. Since joining Credit Karma in 2018, Colleen has grown the employee base to over 1,300 employees across offices in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. In her first six months, she worked to evolve the company’s compensation structure to remove bias and variability and drive a culture of individual progress, growth and collaboration. Prior to Credit Karma, Colleen served as Chief People Officer at Vevo, the world’s leading music video entertainment platform. She has also held the CPO positions at The Climate Corporation and Zynga, as well as leadership roles at Electronic Arts and Microsoft.
With more than 20 years of experience in human resources, operations, recruiting and M&A, Colleen brings a wealth of expertise in managing people operations to support rapid-growth technology companies. She has held executive team leadership roles through two IPOs and two company acquisitions. She is also a technical advisor for HBO’s Silicon Valley, and advises and coaches startups. She holds a B.S. in Mass Communication and Public Relations from Boston University, and a M.A. in Higher and Adult Education from Columbia University. When she’s not working and consulting on people strategies for other companies, Colleen is traveling around the world with her husband Andrew and her son Cooper, who has already been to more than 30 countries at just 15 years old.
Heather Elder
Heather Elder graduated from Boston University and started her career as an account executive at an ad agency. While working on the Polaroid account, she realized her love for commercial photography and left to become an agent and producer for a photographer. It is there that she combined her account executive skills with her marketing and sales skills to develop her own style that quickly became Heather Elder Represents. Twenty-five years later, from her offices in San Francisco and New York, she is representing photographers and directors, producing and recording a podcast, writing a blog for the industry as well as hosting a website for freelance art producers and a photography directory called Create in Place. As someone who believes that there is nothing more important in our industry than sharing knowledge, she is continuously looking for ways to help foster community, and be of service to help move the industry and the individuals within it, ahead.
Bonnie Hammer
Bonnie Hammer is Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal. As a strategic advisor she leverages her strong business and creative experience, broad industry relationships and long-standing commitment to prosocial advocacy to further company initiatives.
In her 40 plus year career, Hammer has been involved in every facet of the television business, often being tapped to position emerging platforms for success. In her previous role as Chairman of the Universal Studio Group, she strategically aligned NBCUniversal’s content business for the global market, bringing together the company’s three powerhouse studios — Universal Television, UCP and NBCUniversal International Studios — under one umbrella. Prior to her studio purview, Hammer was Chairman, Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises, overseeing the creation of Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new streaming platform.
Hammer moved to Peacock after serving as Chairman, NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment where she had executive oversight of leading cable brands USA Network, SYFY, Bravo, Oxygen, E! Entertainment and Universal Kids. Under Hammer’s leadership, these cable networks experienced tremendous growth domestically and internationally. During her tenure at USA, the network was the most-watched entertainment cable channel for record-setting 13 consecutive years. She also grew the network’s profitability by and impressive 33%. As her portfolio grew, Hammer developed SYFY into a global brand by extending its reach to 116 countries worldwide, guided Bravo to top 5 cable network and directed the growth, both domestically and internationally, for E! Entertainment. She also created and oversaw two award-winning production studios, UCP and Wilshire Studios, as well as the digital business Bluprint.
In addition to leading network growth Hammer also cultivated a roster of award-winning series and talent. Under her leadership, USA, SYFY and UCP recorded 167 Emmy award nominations and series such as “Monk,” “Mr. Robot,” “The Sinner,” “Homecoming,” “The Act,” “Dirty John” and “Battlestar Galactica” were regularly lauded by the Television Academy, HFPA and Screen Actors Guild. “Mr. Robot” and “Battlestar Galactica” also received Peabody and AFI awards.
In 2016, with a move that Variety Magazine described as “blowing up the cable TV management playbook,” she centralized all original scripted content for the portfolio under one team and formed a new division tasked with developing forward-thinking planning, Strategy and Commercial Growth.
Earlier in her career, Hammer was an original programming executive at Lifetime Television Network, where she executive produced several award-winning documentaries for the network’s acclaimed Signature Series. She was honored with the Lillian Gish Award, several Cine Golden Eagles and the National Association for Youth’s Mentor Award. Before coming to New York, Hammer executive produced “Good Day!” for WCVB in Boston, and produced the series “This Old House,” “Infinity Factory” and “Zoom!” for PBS.
As a leader, Hammer sought ways to use her platforms to promote social inclusivity. She created and launched a pro-social campaign designed to fight hate and discrimination in America, “Erase the Hate,” in 1994. The initiative received a coveted Governors Award from the Television Academy for its groundbreaking documentaries and specials, community programs and educational materials.
Throughout her career, Hammer has been lauded for both her executive prowess and her dedication to social responsibility. She was named the 2019 “Executive of the Year” by The Hollywood Reporter. She is also consistently included on The Hollywood Reporter’s “Power 100” list and was named “Most Powerful Woman in Entertainment” by the publication. Hammer is regularly included on Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women” list, Forbes’ list of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” and Vanity Fair’s annual “New Establishment” list. In 2008, Hammer received the Anti-Defamation League’s Entertainment Industry Award; she has since chaired ADL’s National Entertainment Advisory Council. For her professional contributions, Hammer has been honored by UJA Federation of New York with the group’s Steven J. Ross Humanitarian Award, the Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications, and the prestigious Crystal+Lucy Award from Women in Film. She was also inducted into Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame.
Hammer currently serves on the Board of Directors of eBay and IAC/InteractiveCorp. She also sits on the AFI Board of Trustees, the Board of Governors for the MPTF Foundation and serves on the strategic planning committee for Boston University’s College of Communication.
Outside the office, Hammer is also an accomplished photographer who has had her work displayed in several galleries and in leading publications such as Time magazine and The Boston Globe. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in media and new technology from Boston University. She also received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Boston University in 2017.