How to Access and Leverage the Media: A Panel Discussion and Networking Event for Social Entrepreneurs

Echoing Green (www.echoinggreen.org) and Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans (www.seno-nola.org) have partnered to co-host a distinguished panel of communications experts to talk about best practices in accessing and leveraging the media.  This panel will help you gain a better understanding of how an early-stage social venture can connect with members of the press, how to pitch news-worthy items, and how to leverage media attention for your entrepreneurial venture.  After the panel discussion, participants will have an opportunity to network with the panelists and other social entrepreneurs.

Panelists

• Cathering Koppel, Associate Director of Public Affairs at Loyola University and former Managing Editor at ABC26 News
• Greg LaRose, Managing Editor at New Orleans City Business
• Mary Lee Murphy, Director of Marketing, Strategic Comp; former Senior Account Executive, Peter Mayer
• Zack Rosenburg, Co-Founder and CEO of the St. Bernard Project; CNN Hero of the Year
• Molly Reid, Staff Writer, Times Picayune
• Jessica Grillanda, former Producer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
  
• Moderator: Robbie Vitrano, CEO/Director of Brand Design/Co-Founder at The Trumpet Group

*Beer, wine, and light refreshments will be served.  This event is limited to the first 60 registrants on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Location: Loyola University, 6363 St. Charles Avenue
Octavia Room (Second Floor of the Danna Student Center located on Loyola’s main campus)
*If you are facing Loyola's main entrance, the Danna Student Center is two buildings directly behind the main building. Click on the link below to see a map of Loyola: http://apply.loyno.edu/maps-directions

Panelist Bios:

Zack Rosenburg

Zack Rosenburg is the Co-founder and CEO of the St. Bernard Project, a non-profit rebuilding organization that is located in St. Bernard Parish.  Since Hurricane Katrina, the St. Bernard Project has completely rebuilt 177 homes and works on 30+ homes at time.  The St. Bernard Project has received numerous awards including, most recently, the CNN Hero of the Year Award, Manhattan Institute’s Social Entrepreneurship Award and a Hero of the Storm Award from Friends of New Orleans.  In January, Zack and Liz were named New Orleanians of the Year.

Catherine Koppel

Catherine Koppel is the new associate director of public affairs at Loyola University New Orleans. She is a former television journalist with approximately 10 years of experience in the New Orleans market.  She most recently served as managing editor at WGNO ABC 26 News, where she was nominated for an Emmy Award. Koppel also worked as the assignment editor for both WVUE Fox 8 in New Orleans and for KPNX-TV NBC 12 in Phoenix. She has also worked for broadcast news stations in the Boston area. As a student, Koppel interned for CNN in Moscow, Russia.  Koppel spends her free time writing articles for local and national publications and editing the Junior League of New Orleans quarterly magazine, Lagniappe. She is an active member and former board member of the Press Club of New Orleans. 

Greg LaRose

Greg LaRose is managing editor for New Orleans CityBusiness, the region's weekly business journal and source of the Daily Update e-mail blast.  He has been with CityBusiness for 4 1/2 years and has been part of the news media for 19 years, leading newsrooms in print and broadcast.

Mary Lee Murphy

Robbie Vitrano

Robbie Vitrano is CEO/Director Brand Design/co-founder of Trumpet, a new kind of full-service communications company designed to identify business opportunities in complex situations. The business model has been honed in Post-Katrina New Orleans with the city as a start-up laboratory of global significance. Issues such as social justice, the environment and capitalism are compressed and in hard focus. Since the storm, Trumpet has partnered on strategic priorities at the center of the New Orleans' recovery, including: place branding, cultural revitalization, economic development, tourism, bio-innovation, education, public health, public safety and community planning. Trumpet has grown 300% since 2005, earning a place on the 2007 Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the U.S. Vitrano also co-founded New Orleans leading entrepreneurial advocate, the Idea Village, teaches branding at Loyola University, and serves on the boards of the Downtown Development District, the Crescent City Farmers Market/ECOnomic Institute, N.O. Center for the Creative Arts, Unity for the Homeless, New Orleans Film Festival, and Langston Hughes Charter School.

Jessica Grillanda

Jessica Grillanda teaches and coordinates a broadcast new-media journalism graduate program in northern Ontario, Canada. Over the past decade, she has worked across Canada as a radio producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She has also worked as a journalism trainer with Journalists for Human Rights in West Africa and with Images Asia on the Thai-Burma border. Jessica produced a feature radio documentary on rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward last summer. She also volunteered with Common Ground Relief writing articles for a weekly publication for the Lower 9th called Breaking Ground.  Contact info: jgrillanda@hotmail.com, (705) 919-7634.

Molly Reid

Molly Reid is a freelance reporter based in New Orleans. Hailing from nearby Lafayette, La., she writes primarily for The Times-Picayune, covering general assignment news pieces and lifestyle features. She writes a weekly column on sustainable living, as well as an occasional column featuring local craftspeople, and focuses on local green building and renewable energy efforts.