A senior corporate communications counsellor with a specialty in high technology and corporate transformations, experienced in major corporations and smaller entrepreneurial organizations.

Brian A. Kilgore is a Toronto-based public relations and corporate communications consultant. During his more than 40 years of professional communications experience, (he started during high school) he has designed programs and implemented tactics in virtually every facet of the communications business, including strategic planning, investor relations, government relations, marketing communications, media relations, crisis communications, corporate donations and corporate sponsorships, graphic design, business photography, and web site design and content.

He has worked at many levels and in various disciplines within the advertising and marketing professions, too.

Mr. Kilgore’s current counsel and advice go beyond educating, raising awareness or garnering support for a company’s major stakeholders.

CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIC PLANNING
Specifically, he examines an organization and determines how improved communications will cause stakeholders to take actions that benefit the organization.

INTERPERSONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS
He also teaches an executive development program – Interpersonal Business Communications – that enables managers to communicate better with other managers and with staff, within their own organizations and in meetings with clients, customers, and other stakeholders. This intensive program is based on the kinds of communications actions and skills that are utilized face-to face interactions.

Throughout the 1970s, as Director, Public Relations and Public Affairs of Northern Electric-Northern Telecom (now Nortel Networks), he played a major role in the transformation of this company from its traditional role as the manufacturing arm of Bell Canada to one of the world’s best respected international telecommunications equipment manufacturing companies.

A major part of this work included developing and managing special events, including plant openings, beyond the conventional public relations parameters.

As Director, Public Affairs, CNCP Telecommunications (now AT&T Canada) he played a major role in the introduction of cellular telephone service and competitive long distance service in Canada.

In both these organizations, the success of the corporate communications initiatives was based in large part on the close working relationships and mutual respect between and among Mr. Kilgore and the executive management at not only Northern Telecom and CNCP but at their customers and suppliers, too.

Prior to establishing his own firm, Mr. Kilgore was Client Services Manager and a member of the Toronto Management Committee at Burson-Marsteller, then the world’s largest public relations firm, where he sorted out a national communications crisis for Labatt’s Breweries, managed the communication for the interprovincial merger of two of Canada’s most prominent law firms (Fasken & Calvin of Toronto and Martineau Walker of Montreal), and oversaw the communications efforts of Canada's pioneering High-Technology incubator organization.

His commitment to professional development within the public relations profession is shown by his decade of service to the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS). He has served on the Board of CPRS Toronto, acting as chair of the education committee for several years. He was then elected President of CPRS, Toronto Chapter in 1988-89. He spent several years as a CPRS National (Canada-wide) presiding officer.

He is a firm believer in giving back to the profession and nurturing the next generation of professional communicators. He has served on the advisory boards for the public relations courses at Humber College, Durham College and Ryerson University. He has lectured on communication at Centennial College and Seneca College in Toronto, and at Mount Royal College in Calgary, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton, and Algonquin College in Ottawa, in addition to speaking at professional development sessions of the International Association of Business Communicators and the Canadian Public Relations Society.

Mr. Kilgore has written on corporate communications, advertising, marketing and related topics for The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business, Marketing Magazine, and the Financial Post in addition to articles for a broad range of trade magazines.

He currently writes a column, as a contributing editor, for CE Biz, a Canadian trade publication for retailers in the electronics and photography businesses, and a commentary column on public relations and corporate communications for Jack O'Dwyer's On-Line Report, at www.odwyerpr.com , the most significant U.S.-based web site for public relations practitioners.

He was a founding editor of eBizChronicle, a web publication. In September 2001, he published a major paper in The Journal of Employee Communications Management about the relationship between CEOs and internal communications professionals.

He has judged the Financial Post’s Annual Reports competition, Canada’s awards for transit advertising, and Marketing Magazine’s awards for advertising.

Mr. Kilgore became a professional communicator while still in high school in 1960 as a photographer for the Moncton Times and Transcript and L'Evangeline newspapers. He worked during high school for the Toronto Telegram and The Globe and Mail, and after university (Ryerson Photographic Arts and York Economics and Geography) worked for Thomson newspapers and Maclean-Hunter Publishing before entering the public relations business in 1970.