Cookerly is a proud member of Worldcom Public Relations Group, the world’s leading global partnership of independent public relations firms, with more offices in more cities and countries than any multi-national firm.
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Mike Touhill is vice president at Cookerly Public Relations, where he helps lead traditional, social and digital media programs for B2B and B2C clients in packaging, telecommunications and technology, among other industries. As a communication leader, he develops and executes public relations strategy, provides proactive and reactive counsel to C-level executives and secures earned media coverage for client initiatives and product.
In his previous roles, Mike has worked for global industrial companies; consumer, lifestyle and real estate brands; and academic institutions. He is an enthusiastic, team-first colleague and mentor who is passionate about the power of public relations.
Mike holds a B.A. in Mass Communications from Virginia Wesleyan University.
Andrew Agan is a vice president at Cookerly Public Relations, overseeing the agency’s internship program and leading media relations, content strategy and social media initiatives. He provides counsel and executes campaigns for clients across various sectors, including finance, healthcare, hospitality, technology, automotive and many others. Andrew excels at crafting compelling stories and building media relationships, resulting in clients being featured in notable outlets such as CNBC, Associated Press, Business Insider, Fox Business, HBO, Inc. Magazine, Sirius XM, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, among others.
A graduate of Georgia Southern University, Andrew serves on the school’s Department of Communication Arts Public Relations Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities Advisory Council. Passionate about professional development, Andrew enjoys mentoring junior staff members, helping them grow within the agency and achieve success in their careers.
Cookerly PR has helped Hooters of America, the original wing joint, reach customers about the restaurant’s iconic food and beverages, its world-renowned hospitality and its programs to keep its guests happy. As a gameday dining destination for over 40 years, Hooters sought a fresh way to connect with avid football fans. Embracing the emerging field of NIL partnerships, Hooters took an innovative approach by signing over 50 offensive linemen from college football teams across the country, celebrating these unsung heroes of the gridiron. Cookerly worked closely with Hooters to generate and sustain high visibility and excitement for the restaurant’s new influencers.
As design director at Cookerly, Tim serves as the creative lead in the development of branding campaigns, print collateral and digital media for clients across a broad range of industries, including consumer, professional services, healthcare and technology.
With more than two decades of experience as an award-winning designer of print, multimedia and web campaigns, Tim provides expertise in the creative development of branding campaigns, print collateral, advertising and digital media.
As an honor graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, he earned dual degrees in graphic design and illustration.
Cookerly helps steer major corporate and executive initiatives for the nation’s #1 luxury automaker including recent award-winning programs such as “Greatness Lives Here” and “No Limits,” initiatives designed to empower the next generation through community activism and education. We recently helped launch the Mercedes-Benz A-Class vehicle line including MBUX artificial intelligence including tie-ins with the Super Bowl, Ludacris and the Ron Clark Academy. Leveraging paid, earned, shared and owned media, the Cookerly team supports MBUSA across both external and internal channels.
With more than two decades of experience in public relations and journalism, Mike is a strategic communications leader who focuses on media relations and reputation management.
He leverages his background as a former news editor to develop media strategies that drive visibility and engagement, excelling at crafting compelling narratives that resonate across print, broadcast and digital platforms. Mike has a passion for helping his clients understand how to create strategic communications plans that move the meter and uncover impactful stories to secure high-profile placements in top-tier outlets, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and USA Today.
His practice spans an array of industries, but he specializes in the healthcare, nonprofit and entertainment sectors, where he’s led award-winning campaigns for a variety of clients, including Kaiser Permanente, YMCA and Georgia Film Academy. His work for City of Hope, formerly Cancer Treatment Centers of American, began with its groundbreaking, development of a comprehensive marketing communications program, carried through establishing the hospital’s reputation for world-class treatment and spurred growth that greatly exceeded patient projections. For Georgia Film Academy, Mike, developed paid, earned, shared and owned media strategies that boosted course enrollment by 22% and established Executive Director Scot Votaw as a go-to industry thought leader. And as Georgia became the “Hollywood of the South,” he led promotion of Pinewood Atlanta Studios’ rebrand as Trilith, a unique 235-acre master-planned community designed for the film and creative industries that’s home to Trilith Live, Trilith Studios, homes, restaurants and retailers.
A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mike earned his degree in speech communication from the University of Georgia. He is deeply engaged in the community, serving on the Board of Trustees for the Chattahoochee Nature Center and co-chairing the PRSA Georgia Healthcare Resource Group. An avid sports enthusiast and tennis player, he resides in Marietta, Georgia, with his wife and two children.
As vice president of Cookerly, Sheryl Sellaway uses her extensive corporate communications background to lead consumer PR efforts, deliver strategy for marketing programs and share expertise about community initiatives.
An award-winning speechwriter, Sheryl comes to the firm with over 20 years’ expertise in media relations, employee communications and community affairs. Some of her best work has occurred while leading product launches, handling crisis situations, managing senior leadership meetings and overseeing employee events.
Sheryl is a Georgia native with an MBA from Amber University and a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University. Active in the community, she is a Leadership Atlanta graduate currently serving on several boards including Bethany Christian Services. Sheryl is an author, pen collector, avid runner, mentor and philanthropist.
For McDonald’s, engaging with the community is central to winning the hearts of new customers. McDonald’s USA has engaged Cookerly on a variety of initiatives to bring creative programs to market and to help reach new audiences. Whether helping bring mom bloggers to the Ronald McDonald House, showcasing crew members who have unlocked new opportunities through the Under the Arches career opportunities program or celebrating the grassroots community athletes selected for the McDonald’s All-American Basketball team, we’ve kept the brand consistently in the news. We’ve also sparked social media sensations through outreach for pop-up Mac Junior Taste Kitchens, DJ Flavor Battles promoting 24-hour breakfast, stoked the search for the Special Sauce and conducted Twitter giveaways of MIT-designed milkshake straws. Representing an icon means bringing great paid, earned, shared and owned media to the table!
Carter, one of the country’s leading real estate investment, development and advisory firms partners with Cookerly to strengthen its credibility, increase corporate brand recognition and build visibility through the firm’s numerous projects. Cookerly’s comprehensive media relations program consistently emphasizes brand messaging and competitive points of difference and consistently positions Carter as an expert in the commercial real estate industry. The announcement of Carter partnering with Georgia State University to redevelop Turner Field continues to provide national media exposure which helps solidify the five decade old firm’s reputation as one of the nation’s most respected real estate industry brands.
Cookerly works with Colonial Pipeline Company to develop, refine and implement crisis communications emergency response plans that can be activated in the event of a pipeline incident. The plan enhances Colonial’s readiness to respond to crises and helps elevate the public information officer (PIO) functions. Cookerly conducts ongoing training events for the PIO team and partner agencies on the crisis plans, including tabletop exercises and planned drills to ensure members of the communications team understand response roles and processes. In addition to crisis communications, Cookerly supports Colonial’s internal communications and community outreach efforts.
Thousands of people are injured or die in the U.S. from medication preparation errors in hospital and compounding pharmacies each year. Winnipeg, Manitoba and Buffalo Grove, Illinois-based ARxIUM partners with Cookerly to raise awareness of its fully-automated, robotic technology that prevents errors in medication compounding. Cookerly executes a targeted media relations campaign to increase knowledge of ARxIUM within the pharmacy and hospital communities, focusing on the benefits of automated compounding – safety, cost savings and efficiency – while positioning ARxIUM’s technology as the product category’s gold standard. Consistent and knowledgeable messaging has helped increase understanding of the advantages of automation and drive the client’s sales channel.
Cookerly is a trusted partner of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency in a relationship dating to 2008. The agency provides communications counsel and life-saving messaging strategies that promote the critical need for preparedness, before disasters strike. Utilizing the full media spectrum and building partnerships with major corporate enterprises, Ready Georgia inspires change in the state. Thousands of Georgia households continue to implement their own comprehensive emergency management plans. As the program’s messaging permeates all regions of the state, the number of citizens prepared to confront and emerge safely from disasters grows by the day.
Chip Stewart is a strategist for the agency’s content services across all media. He helps clients develop blogs, videos, editorials and advertorials, mobile apps, infographic campaigns and annual reports. He is integral in the agency’s management and execution of crisis and issues management programs across a broad range of industries including petroleum, mining, transportation, healthcare, data management and many more.
He serves as a chief writer for C-Suite executives’ presentations to industry groups and their statements to the media and public during a variety of crises. He develops critical messaging for clients’ internal and external channels; creates content for outreach to federal, state and local government; essential non-government entities and other audiences to help achieve outcomes that protect clients’ reputations and bottom lines.
Chip previously served the University of Georgia, from which he graduated in 1979, in communications for the UGA Foundation and in management of the institution’s trademarks. Prior to entering his career in public relations, Chip was a writer and broadcaster for United Press International, and a producer and on-air announcer on one of the highest-rated morning shows in Atlanta radio history.
Chip has bowled competitively from childhood, was captain of the University of Georgia bowling team, achieved a perfect 300 game in league competition and is a U.S. Bowling Congress certified Level Two coach. He and wife Kathy are parents of two, and very proud grandparents of two more.
Stephen specializes in media and speaker training, national media relations campaigns, and customized brainstorms to help companies break through the ordinary, change behaviors, or attract attention in new and different ways.
With more than 30 years of practice, he has represented some of the world’s biggest and most-recognizable brands on award-winning and notable campaigns. At Cookerly, Stephen’s work for retail chain PGA TOUR Superstore showcased customer golf simulators for consumer homes through a creative “Golf Loft” campaign and garnered a PRSA Phoenix award. For Simon Properties, he helped communicate a series of security enhancements, resulting in record, renewed attendance for shopping centers. He also hosted international journalists to put “Phipps Plaza Reimagined” and its signature NOBU Hotel on the map as an East Coast destination. And for Silicon Valley’s Arkose Labs, he leveraged pop cultural moments, such as Taylor Swift’s battle with Ticketmaster, to draw media attention to innovative technologies protecting consumers and their most cherished sites from hackers.
Stephen is passionate about affordable housing, having led both Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and Atlanta Housing to PRSA award wins, the latter for an “Opening Doors” initiative providing record numbers of homes and innovative support services to residents. He’s also an advocate for education, the arts and the PR profession, serving on boards for Ron Clark Academy and Aurora Theatre, as a member of the Southeast Film Critics Association, and as past chapter president and College of Fellows member in PRSA. The student support center at his alma mater University of South Carolina’s College of Information and Communications bears his name, and the University of Georgia’s Grady College honored him as a Georgia PR Hall of Fame inductee for his work in communications.
As senior vice president and chief talent officer of Cookerly, Keith Bowermaster leads the firm’s health care practice, shepherds clients through all facets of integrated marketing, manages reputation issues including complex issues and crises and helps cultivate a bright and engaged agency staff at all levels.
Keith’s superior strategy is a catalyst to results-oriented campaigns, and he works on accounts ranging from The Arthritis Foundation to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia to Cancer Treatment Centers of America. A favorite recent assignment was securing media coverage for Gwinnett Medical Center as it was the first in the state to implement new technology to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms – the tenth leading cause of men over 55.
Keith comes to Cookerly by way of WellStar Health System in Georgia and Jackson Health System in Florida. In his roles, he has led large press conferences with worldwide media, escorted reporters into operating rooms and helped with activations at the FedEx Orange Bowl.
He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and a master’s degree from the University of Miami. He is on the executive board of the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Public Relations Advisory Council for the University of Florida. He has also taught multiple classes at the university level and is a sharpshooter and football fanatic in his spare time.
Beth oversees strategic communications and integrated marketing campaigns for corporate, business-to-business, technology and healthcare clients. With a focus on brand-building, reputation management and cross-channel engagement, she helps companies connect with key audiences and create lasting impact.
Beth is passionate about simplifying complex concepts, using data-driven insights and creative storytelling to create clear, compelling communications. She enjoys collaborating with clients to develop strategies that drive business success.
Her notable campaigns include helping Guardian Pharmacy grow from a startup with two pharmacies into a publicly traded (NYSE) long-term care pharmacy leader with 51 pharmacies, a national foothold and an industry-disrupting approach. Beth also helped the company with new product launches and offered strategic consulting that took Guardian beyond media relations into its first forays in advertising and social media. She is responsible for Cookerly’s award-winning programs celebrating Mercedes-Benz USA (MSUSA), Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the 2019 Super Bowl in Atlanta, including the “Greatness Lives Here” corporate social responsibility campaign highlighting unsung heroes making a difference in Atlanta and the “Welcome to the A” campaign featuring Ludacris. Forbes lauded her work on the “No Limits” initiative between Mattel, MBUSA and the National Girls Collaborative as one of the most talked-about campaigns that year. Beth is equally proud of her impact on children’s issues, providing integrated marketing, message development, PR, advertising, and community and donor relations for The Center for Courageous Kids, a free, accessibility-focused, medically inclusive camp for children with disabilities and lifelong illnesses. Her work on the organization’s behalf has enabled it to welcome more than 44,000 campers and counting, creating a legacy of courage, connection and joy.
A New Jersey native and University of Georgia graduate, Beth loves travel, the outdoors, football, reading, dancing, and time with family and friends.
Cory has been instrumental in the agency’s continued growth, leading its business development, recruitment and much more. He also helps lead the agency’s widely recognized crisis and issue management practice and directs integrated corporate communications campaigns for many notable public and private companies.
He has worked for an expansive list of corporations facing contentious crises, issues and other business challenges, including recognizable brands, such as Walmart Inc., DuPont, Corteva Inc., Chemours Co., Georgia-Pacific LLC, Colonial Pipeline Co. and LexisNexis Risk Solutions Inc. Cory specializes in litigation support, labor and employment matters, regulatory investigations, catastrophic incidents, and many other areas. His crisis and issue experience includes threat assessment and prioritization, planning and training, response support, stakeholder engagement, media relations, and coalition building and management.
A native of Florida and graduate of the University of South Alabama, Cory serves on the global board and North America committee of Worldcom Public Relations Group, the world’s leading network of independently owned public relations firms, and the board of Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities. He is also a past board member of the Chattahoochee Nature Center and Coastal Conservation Association, Atlanta Chapter. He is an avid outdoorsman often found fishing along the Gulf Coast with family and friends.
Tracy leads strategic communications and integrated marketing programs for global corporations, governmental agencies and national nonprofit organizations, with a passion for AI and technology, communities, and the environment and sustainability.
She develops and executes campaigns that help clients reach stakeholders through multi-channel communications, engaging target audiences with brand-building narratives aligned to strategic objectives. And she loves to help clients uncover compelling stories and bring them to life through creative tactics across paid, earned, shared and owned channels.
Tracy has led award-winning campaigns to change commuting habits for The Clean Air Campaign and Livable Buckhead. She launched a robust PR program for AGCO as it went through a massive internal transformation, positioning it as an agriculture technology leader for a digitally driven future, propelling its company executives into the spotlight as thought leaders for tier-one media and announcing its $2.3 billion ag tech joint venture with Trimble to create PTx Trimble – the largest ag tech deal in history. And her work with Georgia-Pacific spans everything from promoting its sustainability/recycling efforts to leading a multi-pronged program to showcase the conversion of its headquarters (one of Atlanta’s tallest skyscrapers) into a mixed-use hub featuring sky-high apartments, offices, retail and entertainment representing the new standard for adaptive reuse.
A graduate of Harding University, Tracy volunteers with several local organizations, including God’s Pantry Food Bank.
In her role as executive vice president of Cookerly, Jane Stout, APR, oversees financial and professional services accounts and sets integrated marketing strategy for the company’s top clients. From creative brand-building to reputation management, she and the Cookerly team leverage traditional and social communications channels to engage with key publics, consistently exceeding client expectations.
She has led the SunTrust Bank account team through major milestones from launching retail and wholesale service lines to kicking off onUp.com, the purpose-driven company’s initiative to help Americans move from financial stress to confidence. Other key accounts have included Merrill Lynch, Allstate, Raymond James Financial, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Ga., Hunton & Williams and many more. A favorite recent assignment is adding financial value for NAPA Auto Parts’ transformed consumer model.
Jane is a native of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University and an MBA from the University of Connecticut. She is involved in Business Executives for National Security, where she chairs the SE Communications Committee, participates in Georgia College’s Mentor Program and serves on the board of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. She enjoys traveling internationally is an avid hiker, sailor, pianist and a chef wanna-be.
Guardian Pharmacy Services, a world leader in long-term care pharmacy services, undertook a new approach to serving its core institutional audiences. Cookerly offered fresh perspectives in message development and delivery that assured customer acceptance and increased the company’s profile among prospects. Outreach across vertical communications channels and external media created national exposure that promoted the company, its brand and management team, built credibility, and engendered trust with target audiences. Concurrent with Cookerly’s campaign, Guardian Pharmacy Services’ operational footprint continues to expand, from eight states when the agency was first engaged to 19 today, the number of patients served is up more than 100-percent, and annual revenues continue to trend upward, increasing by 150 percent in five years.
As the tallest hotel in the Southeastern U.S., at 73 stories, the Westin Peachtree Plaza has long been the most recognizable icon in Atlanta’s skyline. These attributes are great, but management must always work to maintain the hotel’s edge in an extremely competitive market for tourism, business travel and meeting/conference trade. Westin calls on Cookerly to create and implement multi-phase communications that include strategically themed content development to drive a schedule of special events and media outreach across internal and external channels. These efforts enhance the Westin Peachtree Plaza’s image as Atlanta’s premier hotel of choice.
Informing a region about new, transformative medical technology and cancer treatment options available to its populace demands an innovative communications approach. That’s exactly what Cookerly provides to Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) to support marketing of their newest hospital near Atlanta. The agency’s team conceives and implements comprehensive marketing-communications programs via internal and external channels targeted to cancer patients across the Southeast. Five years into the program, CTCA’s image is that of a health care institution whose people care deeply about their patients and who serve them in a facility that is a technologically advanced, world leader in successful cancer treatment outcomes.
Rare.us is a social-centric news site owned by corporate giant Cox Media that attracts 40 million monthly visits. It is one of the fastest growing sites in the U.S covering national news focused on politics and culture. The company engages Cookerly to help establish its editorial credibility in mainstream media and build its overall brand. In addition to delivering trending stories in a quick, easy-to-read format, Rare.us is the editorial home of Jack Hunter, a respected political analyst, editor and writer. Cookerly’s strategy cultivates Hunter’s reputation with destination content that people actively seek to stay informed. Building on his experience, Cookerly positions him as an expert source and regularly secures opportunities with top national and international news outlets.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions is a leader in providing essential information that helps customers across industries and government predict, assess and manage risk. Cookerly is helping the company shape the industry narrative in mass media and vertical channels, sharing how the power of data analysis can be harnessed for societal benefits such as serving the formerly underbanked, tracking down missing or exploited children and ensuring government services get administered to those in need. The program is effectively positioning LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ c-suite executives as industry thought leaders.
As the firm’s founder, Carol is a chief strategist for building and sustaining brands. However, her deft management of complex crises and issues over three decades has made Cookerly a top choice for clients when adversity strikes. Under her direction, the agency has been the lead strategist in scores of permitting efforts, contamination issues, natural and man-made disaster responses, instances of legislative and judicial activism, and challenging personnel matters, including C-suite succession, whistleblowers, discrimination and harassment in nearly every major industry.
She has provided counsel to Walmart Inc., DuPont, NAPA Auto Parts, Allied/Republic Waste Services Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., AstroTurf and many more.
A former broadcast journalist, Carol worked in public relations in New York City before founding Cookerly Public Relations in 1990. She leads media training and tabletop exercises for senior executives in companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
She is a graduate of Duke University and volunteers her time and talents in support of The Metro Atlanta YMCA, Murphy-Harpst Children’s Center and Road Safe America, among others. She is an avid equestrian, fly fisher, sporting clay enthusiast and Americana antique collector.
Great communications starts with having something meaningful to say. Something engaging. Something that others will want to share. We have a team of writers, designers and innovators to help lock down your strategy and calendar and help develop snackable content in all its forms – from memes to mobile, from bylines to blogs. Our applications, videos, quizzes, memes and more are built for quick reads, rapid recall, awesome engagement and social shareability.
What if a natural disaster impacts your operations? How do you respond if an issue threatens the financial viability of your company? What would you do if regulators launch an investigation into your business? If your company’s reputation is under attack, how will you defend it?
High-stakes scenarios like these impact businesses every day. Are you prepared?
Whether it’s a problem below the radar, an emerging crisis – or a full-blown eruption – Cookerly’s team stands ready to put out the proverbial fire or prevent a relatively quiet issue from becoming incendiary. All the kinds of crisis/issues that make the news; data breaches, environmental contamination, permitting, NIMBY, litigation, labor disputes, corporate malfeasance, franchise issues – we’ve handled them all.
We translate your business strategy into a marketing program that drives results, regardless of communications discipline. Leveraging paid, earned, owned and shared platforms, we build and bolster reputations in the eyes of your key publics. We blend tried-and-true traditions with the latest digital innovations to amplify content. Our end-to-end integrated marketing ecosystem is called Cookerly IM IQ. It begins with social listening and ends with measuring ROI and KPIs.
NAPA AUTO PARTS, the nation’s top brand in the automotive aftermarket, is ramping up its retail operation across the country with grand reopening celebrations to show off its transformed “top stores,” expanded inventory and “NAPA Know How.” Cookerly designed a creative program that has successfully sparked conversations across media and social media channels in the target markets, enhanced community relationships, built awareness/visibility, increased customer traffic at store events and helped boost NAPA sales and follow-on business.
The Arthritis Foundation has undergone significant changes and seeks to build upon a renewed direction with fresh perspectives. The foundation relies on Cookerly to infuse new ideas, raise national awareness and engage internal stakeholders to support the organization’s new and powerful “Champion of Yes” branding. The comprehensive communications strategies and tactics conceived and implemented for the foundation put a national focus on the critical nature of arthritis and are helping reinvigorate the organization’s image of one committed to conquering the insidious and debilitating disease.
For more than seven years, SunTrust has relied on Cookerly to help conceive and implement comprehensive marketing-communications programs via internal and external channels. The strategies and tactics developed and deployed for SunTrust helped transform the company’s image from that of a “traditional bank” to a purpose-driven financial services institution committed to helping clients achieve their most ambitious financial goals. The launch of the onUp movement at the Super Bowl – and the surrounding media and social media attention – helped the bank enter a new playing field of impacting Americans’ fiscal fitness.
