Lioness Conversations: Brave Stories of Women Leaders & Female Founders | Women leading with confidence, empowerment, entrepreneurship, innovation, impact | The Trusted Advisor in High-Stakes Communications

Kathleen Lucente is an unparalleled expert in corporate communications, whose 30-year track record has made her the trusted first call for CEOs and CMOs navigating everything from major launches to crisis management. As CEO and founder of Red Fan Communications, Kathleen built her firm on the revolutionary principle of providing senior-level, integrated communications that go far beyond traditional PR.

Here are 3 key takeaways that make this episode a must-watch:

"Play the Tape" Forward: Learn Kathleen's powerful strategy for proactive leadership, where meticulously envisioning all potential scenarios and stakeholder impacts transforms decision-making in high-stakes situations.
Beyond the Checklist: Discover how truly effective strategic communication goes beyond generic playbooks, building unparalleled trust and providing customized solutions that address the nuanced "soul" of a company.
Crisis into Opportunity: Gain insights from Kathleen's firsthand experiences, including navigating the JPMorgan Chase merger and leading crisis communications during 9/11, demonstrating how to maintain a clear head and even find camaraderie when all hell breaks loose.

Tune into the full episode to unlock invaluable wisdom on strategic communication, reputation management, and building authentic, lasting relationships in business.

Connect with Kathleen Lucente:
https://redfancommunications.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleenlucente/

Learn how to become a Lioness here!
https://www.jenportercoach.com/

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Lioness Conversations

01:30 Kathleen Lucente and Red Fan Communications

03:34 The Importance of Strategic Communications

06:28 Building Relationships with Clients

09:25 The Process of Client Engagement

12:12 Crisis Management and Proactive Planning

15:17 Navigating Leadership Challenges

18:46 The Journey into Communications and Leadership

21:56 Crisis Management During 9/11

26:08 Lessons Learned from Crisis Situations

28:22 Life in Hong Kong and Family Dynamics

32:31 Life in Hong Kong: Cultural Adjustments and Community

34:46 The Importance of Authenticity in Business

37:33 Navigating Mergers and Acquisitions: The Role of Communication

44:17 The Journey to Entrepreneurship: Starting Red Fan Communications

50:54 Lessons from Family: Balancing Career and Family Life

54:11 Empowering Future Female Leaders: Building Community and Support

Creators and Guests

Host

Jen Porter

Corporate leader turned entrepreneur, I created "Lioness Conversations" to amplify the voices of extraordinary women—leaders who have faced fear, overcome challenges, and are now shaping the world with their work. This podcast is a space for courage, truth, and deep inspiration. My mission is to empower women to be brave, leading with confidence and joy, to do the most meaningful work of their lives.

Guest

Kathleen Lucente

With a 30-year track record navigating the highest stakes of corporate communications, Kathleen Lucente, CEO and Founder of Red Fan Communications, is the unparalleled expert CEOs and CMOs trust when launching big ideas or weathering a crisis. She built Red Fan on the revolutionary principle of providing the senior-level, integrated communications expertise she wished she'd had, making her the essential "first call" for B2B tech leaders facing their most critical challenges.

What is Lioness Conversations: Brave Stories of Women Leaders & Female Founders | Women leading with confidence, empowerment, entrepreneurship, innovation, impact?

Welcome to Lioness Conversations, the podcast dedicated to uncovering and celebrating the extraordinary stories of women who embody fierce strength, tender hearts, and a relentless drive to make a difference in the world. 🦁✨

Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey, Lioness, welcome to the show, Lioness Conversations, where we help women be brave to lead with confidence and joy and define your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women. You can find out more about the Lioness community and how to be a guest on this podcast at jenportercoach.com.

Today we have a very special guest, Kathleen Lucente. With a 30 year track record navigating the highest stakes of corporate communications, Kathleen, CEO and founder of Red Fan Communications, is the unparalleled expert CEOs and CMOs trust when launching big ideas or weathering a crisis. She built Red Fan on the revolutionary principle of providing the senior level

integrated communications expertise. She wished she'd had making her the essential first call for B2B tech leaders facing their most critical challenges. Kathleen, welcome to the show.

Kathleen Lucente (01:09)
Hey Jen, great to be here.

Jen Porter (01:11)
I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. There's so much richness in your story and I can't wait to dive in and have you kind of make that come to life for us. So I'd love for you to start by telling us what is Red Fan Communications and what are you focused on right now in this season?

Kathleen Lucente (01:32)
Sure, Red Fan Communications is an integrated marketing and communications firm focused on B2B companies, specifically those companies that have either gotten their B series and they're ready to really rev up the engine for their marketing so that they can get where they want to be with an IPO, as well as very established companies that are anywhere between 25 million to a billion in revenue but are needing to continue to

reinvent themselves and scale at different levels. So we enjoy focusing on everything from helping clients grow through ⁓ M&A, thought leadership, and obviously managing against any reputation risks.

Jen Porter (02:17)
Yeah, and you have a lot of experience helping companies, both when you were in your Fortune 500 career and then now on your own, helping companies navigate all kinds of things. it sounds like you really, ⁓ you're kind of like a game changer. It sounds like you wanna change up the way the agency is done, the way that communications are done and PR is done. What do you feel like is your real sweet spot?

Kathleen Lucente (02:47)
Well, I think I learned about myself early on. I'm kind of like one of those people that you can't put in a box. ⁓ And that is a benefit to my clients, meaning I need to understand your full business plan and then how do we apply marketing and communications to that in ways that will advance you. And so in the past, a lot of times people who are hiring or coming out to hire a PR firm or marketing firm, they're thinking of, I just need press. If I just get press,

things will change. And usually we're sitting down and going, wait a second, let's look at the entire issue. What's broken? Are your sales team having trouble getting doors to open? Maybe your messaging isn't working. So I think for us, we starting with that brand narrative work and doing sort of an audit of what is happening and what's not working and what is working. So we can set a data backed plan in place that every dollar matters that we spend with our clients.

to advance their mission. And that's a difference because PR for PR sake is not going to do much for a company. There's got to be strategy first.

Jen Porter (03:56)
guessing that you find leaders that come to you have a particular agenda in mind and then you're the kind of a person that actually wants to go way deeper and broader to understand the full context of what's happening. And so is there resistance? How do you get people to understand there's actually more at play here than what you're coming to me for?

Kathleen Lucente (04:23)
Yeah, I had a great example the other day. ⁓ A fantastic woman sent me a RFP. So she, you know, sent it over and I wrote back and said, hey, you know, we just don't respond to.

RFPs traditionally unless certain questions are answered. And she answered this question and then I said, you know, don't think we're going to be a right fit, but I am more than happy to come in and sit down with you and your board to walk you through why this RFP is not going to get you what you need. And I asked her, have you heard back from any agencies on this RFP? She said, yeah, she was very open and luckily she was vulnerable. And I actually was able to go sit down with her and her board

and just be as kind as possible and help them understand, I see what you're trying to get done. It's just that the way you're asking, you're not going to get it done. And you need to get this first step, that brand narrative work done. And if you don't get that done, nothing else is going to matter. so luckily she was willing to invite me in and be vulnerable. And I think being vulnerable and having a trusting relationship is where it all starts. If it's just barking orders or write me a press release, that's really not the kind of relationship we're looking

Jen Porter (05:31)
you

Kathleen Lucente (05:37)
for.

Jen Porter (05:38)
Yeah, so the work that you do is because it's so broad and so deep, it seems like it would take time. It actually would, you would have to be integrated in a sense with a company in order to fully understand it to become that strategist that those leaders depend on. How do you get involved in that and how long does that process take?

Kathleen Lucente (06:05)
The process that we go through first is first in even talking to a company we are all about having probably about three conversations before we even put pen to paper with a proposal for next steps. And that is so we can get a read on is this going to be the right relationship? Are we really compatible? I believe there's a big misstep when companies just say send me a proposal. I mean, this is a relationship business. You better really enjoy

Jen Porter (06:31)
Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (06:35)
you're going be spending time together. So you better enjoy the time, even in those first conversations, right? And so the next step of that is usually putting together ⁓ that first project. And the first project is an eight week.

audit and that is interviewing people internally, externally, doing a full competitive analysis and even an audit of their marketing materials, maybe their internal communications materials to truly get a read on what is going on, what is being messaged out to the world and how are people reacting and then what's the disconnect and how are we going to create something that is going to.

really lift off in the next six months with a campaign that has the right messaging, that has the right channels. So there's no assumption that, you're going to need digital advertising and you're going to need all these things. We do know that you're going to need to get your foundational messaging right. We do know that you're going to need to get your website right. We do know that your sales team is going to need to have the right deck.

your investor team's going to need to have the right content and that it all has to hang together. so that eight week process is what I call almost like the insurance policy that most companies should have in place. Through that process, we also ask our clients, do you have a crisis plan? And some companies are more proactive about that. We have a great health care company on board and the CEO, she knows in the health care industry, you better down well have a crisis plan.

But every company should have that, whether you're going to have protests or ⁓ an employee issue or a breach is one of the biggest issues that we see companies dealing with today, breaches in data that can really take out a company. So we really make sure.

hey, we offer this, we can put this plan together, and that way when an issue bubbles up or a crisis comes to bear, you're not building the plane while you're trying to fly it. You at least have a structure. And so those are the types of things that I call kind of your essentials. And then from there, we're able to build out customized campaigns that usually are retainers that are six, nine, 12 month type arrangements.

Jen Porter (08:43)
Thank

Mm-hmm. So it seems like the wise thing to do would be for companies to bring you in early, but I'm guessing that a lot of companies are more reactive than what you would like.

Kathleen Lucente (08:55)
Yeah

Yeah, I, my dream is that companies just think, you know, Kathleen and team, I should just be calling them. But realistically, you know, usually people show up in life isn't neat, right? ⁓ you know, and so we have to respect that with clients. And so they might still be doing that brand positioning work with us, but they might have a big announcement that has to go out even in parallel with that and some other things that are going on. And we are realistic in that way with our clients. say, what, what's all the stuff that's on that?

Jen Porter (09:07)
you

Kathleen Lucente (09:31)
You know, on the wall, you have a conference you're supposed to be at, you have a spokesperson that's supposed to be going to an event. We're not gonna just say, everything goes on hold. We're going to look at the reality and make sure that we can help them in parallel with as we're building the new plan so that they, that the world doesn't just stop.

Jen Porter (09:52)
And do you typically know how long you're going to be working with a company when you get started after that audit, or is it really fluid?

Kathleen Lucente (09:59)
I love that question because it's life has shown that.

it usually it can be you know a year right ⁓ but most of our clients are with us three to seven years ⁓ and I'm always saying hey when are they gonna pull the you know make the hires in-house I mean they certainly usually have built out a marketing team in-house but our function they really love many of them love us just staying on board because CMOs today are so slammed with meetings I mean half the time if you look at C suites today they're in

meetings all day. I don't know how they get the actual work done. So when you have an outside partner that you really trust that is keeping the engine going, is constantly making sure the award submissions are in and drafting the press releases and ⁓ ensuring that folks people are not getting left out of interviews, where that engine just keeps going. And I think that is a very valuable thing. having been in that position myself, both at IBM and at JPMorgan.

I've always valued having strong agency relationships. I think it's super, super important because traditionally most corporations, don't allow you to hire a lot of other people in-house. And so you might have a tight marketing team, but you don't necessarily, even if you had one person who was doing public relations, they're going to be overwhelmed. You're also probably going to get asked to handle internal communications. And we...

Jen Porter (11:09)
and

Mm-hmm.

Kathleen Lucente (11:30)
very often are helping CMOs champion why they need a budget for internal communications.

I don't know why this happens, but internal communications, which is one of the most important things in a company, right? Often is not structured or funded properly. And it should be coordinated with the CMO's office and the chief people officer's office with the C-suite, right? But often it's like, Hey, can you just get this done as if it's just a bunch of one-off activities? And it really is important. And I think most companies are coming to that realization. did an audit

for a company the other day. We actually helped the CMO go forward and show her CEO that.

our employees want more communication and they would, here's the vehicles of how they would like that communication. And then we were able to do an audit on the type of communication that's gone out to date and the type of reaction they've had. And we were able to show them what's missing. And so we ⁓ basically supported her and getting the funding she needs to hire people in-house and also use us as well as an augmentation in terms of us helping to build out the strategy as well. So that was a pretty cool experience.

Jen Porter (12:33)
Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (12:46)
exercise.

Jen Porter (12:47)
I want to get back to something

you said and see what insights you might have from your experience in working with leaders. said leaders are in meetings all day, every day. And that's the case kind of across the board. Once you're managing people and up, ⁓ it's overwhelming. And, you know, people can't get their work done. They can't implement anything that the meeting was about because they're in the next meeting. How, I mean, a lot of the clients that I work with are facing that. How do you advise

what have you seen work really well for leaders where ⁓ part of it I think is having the confidence to carve out time that you need for those things like working with you. But part of it is like creating boundaries and strategies and maybe changing some things up internally within the culture of a company. But what have you seen that works?

Kathleen Lucente (13:40)
first you said the magic word boundaries and I think that women in particular often

have been taught not to create boundaries or that boundaries somehow creates a roughness or that you're gonna be judged for creating boundaries. And I think it's so important for us to understand that there are really ⁓ fantastic ways to show respectful ways to express boundaries. And so I'm a big proponent of number one, internally teaching my own team how to... ⁓

Block time. I say block time on the calendar and you have to block it. Don't just say, I think I'm going to do that. Block the time and then have another colleague. If a client's calling in, say, Hey, you know, she's in meetings from that time, but I will, you know, if there's something urgent, we'll get back to you. still going to respect the client relationship, but we can't get the work done. if we're constantly in meetings, right. And clients do want us to get the work done. I think the other side of it is with our clients. We also want to respond.

Jen Porter (14:35)
sound.

Kathleen Lucente (14:43)
affect our clients times, right? So we'll say to them, know, we're only going to, you know, if the CEO is extremely busy, we're going to get a half day with you and then we're not going to be bugging you. Like, because we're basically getting answers to questions that we can respond to for reporters that we have had like almost like an inventory of what they are. And if they then need more information, we can go back, right? So, or meetings, we're not having meetings for meeting sake. So,

Jen Porter (15:05)
and

Kathleen Lucente (15:11)
One of the things about agencies is too often I saw...

I would have a meeting with my agency, there'd be like seven people in the room. All seven of those people are billing hours to staring at me in a meeting, having a conversation. I only want the people in the meeting that really need to be there. And you may have meetings internally in advance, but let's not have a bunch of people in a meeting with a client that makes it seem like we're wasting their budget or using their time ineffectively. And also those people need to be also off doing work, right? So I think it's a

fine balance. I do believe that, unfortunately, that starts from the C-suite, this idea that we're gonna be a meeting culture. And I think that every year that needs to be inventoried and checked and changed. And there's an opportunity to change that culture, but you have to be proactive and set the example from the top.

Jen Porter (16:08)
Yeah, yeah. How did you get involved in this work of communications and leadership strategy?

Kathleen Lucente (16:16)
Good question, Jen. I think I fell into it. Interestingly enough, the truth is the moment I was a high-tech journalist up in Boston and...

early in my career and it was a really lovely opportunity. I interviewed with the head of HR. She's like, hey, we don't have any jobs right away, but I really like the way you communicate and you have a master's and from Boston College and we'd love to consider this. Got a phone call, started ⁓ helping a bunch of engineers who are writing for these high tech publications. I was not an engineer and I wound up realizing that I could help them and they could help

me. And ⁓ very often I would help read through their articles and say, hey, you're kind of making some assumptions about the reader here. ⁓ We need a diagram or something. And on the flip side of this, I also had PR people coming in with clients from Japan and from Texas or all over to sit down with me and pitch story ideas. And I got to really see, of these folks are really, really good. some of them are missing the

mark

or they don't have a fire in their belly around what they're doing. And I realized I had this opportunity to ⁓ maybe step into this and ⁓ see if I was good at it. So that's sort of how I stepped into my first opportunity.

Jen Porter (17:46)
right out of grad

school.

Kathleen Lucente (17:48)
At a grad school, yeah, I was teaching freshman English at Boston College. I was working at a ⁓ publishing house on high tech publications. I helped to launch the first biotech magazine. And then I went right into engineering publications at the same publishing house. And what happened, unbeknownst to me, was that Motorola here in Austin, Texas, right when I was thinking about looking at PR firms, they asked their PR firm to hire me because I could write about something very complicated.

⁓ microprocessor chips and make it tangible to your grandmother as well as to the New York Times reader or E.E. ⁓ engineering publications. so sometimes you have to learn about yourself. And so I was very lucky to see different angles on what was potentially my career. And that's how I am where I am.

Jen Porter (18:44)
Wow, it's amazing how we fall into our fields, isn't it?

Kathleen Lucente (18:49)
It is and I've been very lucky a couple of times in my life have had things happen behind my back unbeknownst to me that are career driven. think the another example would be I was at a PR firm in New York City. I helped start their tech practice. It was doing very well. I had just become a partner. And all of sudden I kept getting calls from Chase.

And I kept saying, well, I'm a partner. just made a partner. So I was about to get married, you know, that year. And they said, can you just come on over? And it turned out that CEO at Ketchum had said, you should talk to Kathleen and somebody else at the Wall Street Journal and said, you should talk to Kathleen. They've been using a recruiter. It wasn't working out. They were looking for somebody who had banking and tech background. And next thing I know, I was hired.

as part of that merger, the JP Morgan Chase merger, and I was in charge of communication for Lab Morgan, which was their, basically their VC spinoff of fintech companies, which now today I do tons of work with fintech companies, but I had been bringing companies public ⁓ and been doing a lot of finance deals because it was the dot com era.

Jen Porter (19:54)
Did you have banking experience at that point?

Mm-hmm.

Kathleen Lucente (20:04)
But

I didn't have, and we also were working in some early stage fintechs when I was at that small ⁓ agency in New York City. And so that was really the only thing. I think the challenge was that the recruiter that the firm had hired didn't, they kept looking at banking people who didn't have tech background. And so I think they looked at me and said, well, she's got all the tech background.

And she's shown that she understands enough about the finance side. So let's, let's go that route. And so it's, it panned out.

Jen Porter (20:35)
What did that open

up for you, Chase?

Kathleen Lucente (20:38)
That opened up so many things. Well, it turned out that I left and went and got married. They said when you get back, this job is yours, you know, accept it. By the time I got back, the merger had happened between Jake and Morgan Chase. I think there were six phone calls saying, don't worry, you still have your job. Yep, you still have your job, you still have your job. My husband and I just got back from our honeymoon.

Jen Porter (20:58)
Did you know that merger was going to happen while you were gone?

Kathleen Lucente (20:59)
I did, luckily the executive

team had tipped me off that it was kind of clear that that potentially would happen and that I had been assured that my job was gonna be fine. But joining a company right when they're in the process of doing a merger is a very interesting time because you also have people getting laid off and you've got co-heads. ⁓ So I was in a good position to be able to really focus on my role. wasn't distracted.

by some of the things that other people would be distracted by in a merger, because I hadn't been part of the merger. I was like Switzerland showing up, right? So that was interesting. And then I also helped with the CrisisComm for 9-11. I actually saw the second plane hit. I was there. It was one of my other examples where I learned I was very good at CrisisComm.

And I had agreed to go to Hong Kong to handle communications out there for a short period of time. It's supposed to be like a month or, you know, period of time. It turned out I had already accepted that role before 9-11 and then 9-11 happened.

Jen Porter (22:02)
⁓

Kathleen Lucente (22:10)
And everyone's like, are you still going to go? And the reason why I was going out there was that when JPMorgan Chase merged, there were two heads of communication, one from Chase, one from JPMorgan out there, and two different teams. And my boss wanted me to get, you know, be able to support the new CEO who was out there and sort of get a read on what was needed. And I don't know how many weeks into it, I think I went.

I got a call asking if I would stay and be the head of communication for 18 overseeing 18 countries and a four way merger out in Asia. So I had to call my husband and say, Hey, how do you feel about living in Hong Kong? And so, yes, that opportunity opened up a time for us ⁓ as a family. And it's one of the most exciting times in my life other than what I'm doing now.

Jen Porter (22:58)
What?

So let's talk about 9-11, because I know a little bit of the backstory from what you've already shared with me. And I think it's such an interesting kind of pivotal moment in your career when you did what other people weren't doing. ⁓ You stayed. So describe that for us. ⁓ What was your role and what did you step into and lean into during that crisis?

Kathleen Lucente (23:17)
That's true.

Yeah.

Yeah, the morning of 9-11, when you're in investment banking, you get to work very, very early. And so that's a benefit to, I was up extremely early and I had an office down at 60 Wall Street, as well as an office up at headquarters in Midtown. I told my husband, hey, I'm leaving. ⁓ He thought I was going, he wasn't sure which office I was going to, but I got a call from an executive.

who I was supposed to be meeting with and he said, hey, no need to come down to Wall Street, meet me up at Midtown. So number one, that was the first very positive thing that happened. Otherwise I would have been down ⁓ at Wall Street.

When I got to work that day, I went into my boss's office and his partner had called him saying, I just saw a plane hit a building. It wasn't even on the news yet. ⁓ We thought it was maybe not real. We have TVs everywhere because we're in public relations. Pretty soon, it came up. And very soon after, right past the MetLife building, we could see that this, when the second plane hit. then, you know, what we called, it was like an EF Hutton moment. It got real quiet.

A lot of people on that communications floor just started panicking and they fled. you know, obviously people got nervous about bridges getting closed. They got nervous about, you know, bridges, tunnels and getting stuck in New York City. I think in that moment when you're living there, you actually thought, are we under attack?

Is there more, is there more coming what's happening? And so every person's reaction was valid. It's just very interesting to see how different people react. And so I wound up staying with my boss, handling inbound media calls. Yeah.

Jen Porter (25:12)
Can I pause you there? Because

there was something that you shared with me that I think is very unique. It sounded like you trusted your intuition in that moment. There was something inside of you that said, stay.

Kathleen Lucente (25:24)
Thanks.

Yeah, I felt very clear about me need to stay and assess. ⁓ I think people have fight or flight reactions a lot of time. And my reaction in that moment was I have everything I need at my fingertips right here. I don't need to leave this building. I need to determine what is going on and for myself, for my family and for this business and for the city. Right. And we have to understand the what's the context. And so ⁓

That was just my reaction. Interestingly, my husband ran across town. ⁓

pushed past security and was standing in front of me at my office in a suit sweating. He was so glad to see I was okay because he couldn't reach me, right? So there's a lot going on at that time, but a lot of what we had to do was first, that day was terrible and there were a lot of ⁓ after effects and additional threats and people wondering what was happening next. And we had everything from anthrax scares and it seemed like there was crisis after crisis after.

in the midst of all that. And I think that you don't want to get numb to it, but you do need to keep a really clear head. And what we needed to understand was what was happening with the psychology of our employees at that time. When you're in a bank, you have to keep the bank running.

and people who live in New Jersey and Connecticut, and we really needed to provide mental health support. So a lot of this was internal communications as well, bringing in experts and helping them be readily available for employees. And our firm was very lucky. We lost one person that day who was exiting, walking down a flight of stairs and had a heart attack specifically in the exit. ⁓

That was a very, very sad, obviously, experience. But we also learned some interesting things. We also realized that some of our fellow banks were unable to function because their technology had gotten knocked out. we were able to offer our server facilities in New Jersey and other places to keep those banks, our competition. So one of the things I've learned through the crisis of 9-11 and then living in Hong

Jen Porter (27:42)
Wow.

you

Kathleen Lucente (27:50)
Kong

during SARS is that competition becomes frenemies when all hell is breaking loose. So you really want to share best practices. You want to try because we're in this together. This isn't like a one company issue. It becomes sort of a community and industry and then how do we help each other? so

Jen Porter (27:58)
Mm.

Kathleen Lucente (28:13)
Luckily, have seen it has brought out the best in some of us. And I've seen some great examples of camaraderie and learning, but also respecting that everybody reacts differently. And it's not anyone's role to judge other people in a crisis. We all have to just respect that we're humans. And we to give each other what each other needs in those moments.

Jen Porter (28:23)
Mm.

What did you learn about how to navigate crisis just within your company? ⁓ What sorts of things were takeaways, learnings that were obvious to you through going through that?

Kathleen Lucente (28:56)
Biggest one was, think that big companies often do have some level of crisis playbook. It doesn't, it's not like here it is, plug it in, it's gonna work, right? There's a lot of coming together, a lot of communication that has to happen on a daily basis. And you have to create.

the right team of individuals that need to be in that crisis team. And so one of the things that I've really carried forward here at Redfan with our clients is really making sure that they consider the importance of having a framework for a crisis plan. And when I say crisis, people think, well, how often is that going to happen? Issues bubble up and become crises. So you also have to teach employees how to

raise issues to management's attention and have a method for doing that so that it can get caught sooner versus it turning into a crisis. And so those are the types of things that I work on with our. ⁓

clients to make sure that they actually have a plan in place. And then we've certainly, we're on the 411 for a lot of companies that are not on our website that call us when they're under distress and need support. And if we have the capacity, we certainly step up and make sure we're available to make that possible.

Jen Porter (30:12)
Mm-hmm.

And then what was Hong Kong like? Such a big change for you and your husband, right?

Kathleen Lucente (30:25)
Well, yeah, and I got to Hong Kong initially by myself. And I was there for about three months initially. And it was fantastic, because I was coming from New York and I was coming right out of 9-11, right? So ⁓ it was a little bit like, gosh, I have a big project to focus on.

and I can at night check in with my people back in New York and see what's going on in New York City. But it was fantastic to kind of look at, we had a four-way merger there. My chairman had outlined what the goals were for the business. And I said, okay, well, and he had never been in the press before. He was in his 50s. He was originally from Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs has a different philosophy around media relations than J.K. Morgan Chase did.

We really wanted our executives to be a little bit more present and a little bit more out there speaking. And so he said, I'm in your hands. I basically helped him kind of build out. They were rebuilding the equity part of our business. We were building out some parts. And my goal was to take us from, think we were number five in the market to number one or two. And we did that. We also restructured. I did have to lay off some people.

and also hire the people that we needed to take us when we needed Mandarin speakers. If you're going to be trying to grow in mainland China, we needed certain elements. created all sorts of cool things. We created new customer entertainment opportunities for our private wealth management. I remember we hired Andre Agassi to do private tennis lessons for clients and all sorts of cool stuff.

Jen Porter (32:09)
So

creative.

Kathleen Lucente (32:10)
really differentiating ourselves in the market as bringing unique opportunities and experiences there, which was really, really fun.

Jen Porter (32:18)
Wow.

Wow. And then your husband joined you after you decided to stay. How long were you there?

Kathleen Lucente (32:25)
We were there for five and a half years. so, yes, he joined and he wound up.

working for China Light and Power and Alternative Energy, which was a really exciting time, know, wind energy, all sorts of new technologies. My husband is an engineer and PhD from MIT. So this was a great opportunity. And it turned out that they were looking for his skill set and not finding it. And so it just worked out perfectly. Took a little time, but it was the right role and it worked out great.

Jen Porter (33:02)
And then you started your family there, right?

Kathleen Lucente (33:05)
We

did. remember ⁓ I was actually is an interesting situation. I was I was doing a panel of women bankers and ⁓ we had ⁓ in terms or, you know, from all the different banks, these are mostly all young women who were looking for career advice. And so we had bankers from all these different banks. And I was sitting in that panel and a woman.

on up there who I respected a lot. said, you know, I got so caught up in my career, I forgot to have children and I forgot to put time into my marriage. And today, you know, I'm divorced and I have no children. And I remember thinking, I'm going to go home and get pregnant. I had been promoted, I was at the top of my game. And I thought, you know, I'm not gonna sit around and wait. I'm, I'm ready for this. And I remember,

Jen Porter (33:51)
you

Kathleen Lucente (34:02)
was really funny because my husband and I had this huge party at our apartment one day and the next morning he's like, oh, I have something. go, I have something. We both reached under the bed and pulled out pregnancy tests at the same time. Because he's like, I'm pretty sure you're pregnant. And I was like, yeah. I was like, yep, he's a very insightful man. so.

Jen Porter (34:19)
He knew?

Kathleen Lucente (34:24)
That was Jillian, our daughter Jillian, who actually is named after my grandmother, who was also a pioneer in the telephone company, ⁓ who lived to 101 in the Boston area. ⁓ she ⁓ passed away only two weeks after I got to Hong Kong. Her name was Lillian Grace. And I named my daughter Jillian Grace, just changed that L to a G. So yeah, very excited. Very excited. Yep.

Jen Porter (34:50)
Wow, what

a legacy.

Kathleen Lucente (34:52)
Yeah, it was fantastic. And big changes that when you live in Hong Kong, you you are expected to have a live in, um, with you and we had to go to we really want that but you really almost can't function in that community without it. You can't get things delivered to your house. You have to really understand all the different ways of surviving there. So we you wind up we had a fantastic woman who was from the Philippines who lived in our home and she cooked and took care of our

child and was there when I got home every day and she became part of our family and she actually moved to the United States with us as well. She was here and was able to save enough money to go back and buy the farm next to her mom's home as she wanted in the Philippines for her retirement. you know, just trying to create opportunities all around. That was really important.

Jen Porter (35:48)
What was different

about life there? What else was different that you, that was a kind of an essential element.

Kathleen Lucente (35:55)
you

are expected to be really to be, ⁓ Hong Kong sounds like it's big, but it's in the scope of things, it's actually pretty small. It's very hard to have privacy, Like everywhere you go, you're gonna run into colleagues, including any beach I went to in Thailand, I'd look over and like, there's somebody from JP Morgan. ⁓ And I remember just thinking, what's so funny?

you know, you're expected to belong to clubs, which is part of networking, and these clubs are very old, you know, they've been around forever, and the firms help you get, you know, membership, and you have to get interviewed, and I remember being interviewed.

I was a member of the LRC, the Ladies Recreation Club, which is not just for ladies. And we had to go for like a formal tea and those types of things. So there's still, even though the handover had taken place a long time ago, there's still very much a very British feeling ⁓ to it and just lovely. ⁓ I really enjoyed the international aspect of learning about what people were doing in different cultures.

And you just think differently when that experience has made my life so much more rich and how I think about helping clients every day.

Jen Porter (37:19)
How so?

Kathleen Lucente (37:20)
I'll sit down with clients and I'm thinking about, what are you doing? You you're doing, you want to do nonprofit work. Like, what does that really look like? Do you, are you, what are you doing? You know, how, what are you doing internationally? What's happening in that market? We rebuilds when I was at JPMorgan, we restructured the, I helped to restructure the entire nonprofit philanthropy effort to really map to what was going on in every market. that, ⁓ you know,

It was, have quite a bit of money to give, but I also made sure we were giving time, not just writing checks. And so today when I'm sitting down with clients, I talk about what's your authentic, you know, stamp in your community and how are you giving back and what are you doing? And I think that matters a ton for companies today. It also matters a lot for employees who are looking at companies that they want to join. They want to see what is that? What are the values that this company holds? What are you doing in this community? How can I?

Jen Porter (38:15)
Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (38:18)
help can I actually get involved? And I think that is part of the fiber of companies today.

Jen Porter (38:24)
It makes me think about the soul of a company. Right? And that's what people want to feel like they're making a difference. They want to feel connected to a purpose. And if it's just a revenue generating machine, they're not going to have the loyalty and the retention because they could just get another job doing the same thing somewhere else. And so to feel connected to the soul of a company makes a ton of difference for people.

Kathleen Lucente (38:27)
Absolutely, the soul, yeah.

Right.

Yeah,

in fact, here in Austin, the Chamber of Commerce has a group that I helped to start create, create, then we actually brought it into the Chamber of Commerce. It's called Austin Gives. And we recognize it's an awards program, companies that are giving back in really creative ways involving their employees. So we look at, know, you know, are you what are the ways you might be giving back? And there's incredible stories that come out from these, you know,

these companies of all sizes. And we have awards for every single size. I just did, I spent a couple of hours of their day reviewing 20 submissions and they were just so impressive. And what's great is we're sharing those stories and then other company leaders are learning from those stories and then able to start, yeah, thinking about.

Jen Porter (39:38)
inspiring because they can

they can see the posits being modeled right they can see this is possible what could we do and it really inspires those ideas

Kathleen Lucente (39:44)
Yep. Yeah.

Absolutely. the thing is that companies want to move into new markets, right? And you want to land and expand.

And one of the best ways to land and expand is start to understand what can you do to give back in that community? And if you're just hoping to show up and have a building and start hiring, maybe you're not thinking it through all the way, right? How are you? What is your purpose for being in this new city? ⁓ And so we help companies think about that all across the country. But obviously, Austin and I spent a lot of time, you know.

Jen Porter (40:01)
Hmm. Hmm.

Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (40:23)
looking at things a little more closely here.

Jen Porter (40:27)
What strikes me is that you've had all of these jobs that you didn't necessarily have experience or training in. You stepped into roles and you got recruited into higher level roles and promoted. You you stepped into these major mergers and acquisitions and learned the international scene. Were you intimidated when you were taking on those new assignments?

Or did you just see it as like, this will be a fun challenge?

Kathleen Lucente (41:01)
Well, I do remember during the dot com stage when things were going wild, I remember just getting thrown full into it. And one of the things that I've always known about myself is that I will go and learn.

And I will go ask the top experts. So when I was a tech reporter, I would go and call the, know, the analyst at Gartner or Forrester and say, Hey, I'm writing an article about, you know, this, this standard of microprocessor. I'm including the following, the following companies. Have you heard from anyone else that I should be including in my, in my piece? And they would be my ex, my expert. Right. So I learned early on how to.

very successfully kind of outline what is it that, where are my gaps and how am I gonna learn and who do I need to circle my wagons with and who do I need to put around me because one person by themselves is not the answer. It's having a really great infrastructure of people. And so, sure, I'm sure I was intimidated but.

Jen Porter (42:01)
Mm-hmm.

Kathleen Lucente (42:05)
Even today, I mean, we sit down with M M&A company, clients who are going through M M&A activity and they bring us in early and the PE firms love seeing us there early because number one, we're not only right there for the press relations, we're putting the entire messaging document together, we're outlining the messaging for every single stakeholder and we're helping them think through, hey, you worked so hard.

to get this financial deal together, but imagine if you did not communicate effectively to your employees or to your other investors or to your customers and they found out because through an article in the Wall Street Journal, who are you gonna annoy and then what kind of mess do you have to clean up after that if you don't actually use your communications firm effectively to build out an entire strategy? And so I'm thinking about

Jen Porter (42:48)
⁓

Kathleen Lucente (42:57)
the company as the brand and the reputation that they have. And I'm thinking about who are all the stakeholders that touch that? And then how do we make sure they feel that they were cared for by this brand? And that is really one of the most important roles we can play.

Jen Porter (43:14)
You building on that concept, you mentioned that it's much like a, you see things like a chessboard. In other words, you are looking at all of the different pieces, all of the stakeholders, every relationship. How is it that, I mean, I'm assuming your brain is just wired that way, but can you talk more about...

Kathleen Lucente (43:30)
Yeah.

you

Jen Porter (43:38)
how that chess game plays out and the work that you do and how you leverage your skill set to be able to help leaders see all of those different pieces.

Kathleen Lucente (43:49)
I think ⁓ one of my favorite phrases is play the tape.

So you play the tape forward and what are all the scenarios that could possibly happen. And when you play the tape, you start to realize, yeah, what about this and what about this and what about this? And it helps the CEO. And instead of me just telling the CEO, this is what you need to do. say, let's walk through what happens in the different communities that we need to be communicating to and what will matter. Is there anyone who would be really important that you need to personally pick up the phone for? So it gets down to that level of detail.

Jen Porter (44:06)
Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (44:23)
Because I'm thinking about that CEO's reputation in the middle of an M&A deal, right? Who is going to be okay with just getting an email communication versus would expect a phone call and

what would be the fallout if you did not make that phone call? So playing the tape is one of the best things that you can do is sit with somebody and say, let's play the tape. are, like, what's the scenario? Here's what I'm thinking. Is there anyone that you're thinking? And you kind of put that together. And for me, that involves the CEO or the C-suite when you can get them thinking on their feet versus just here's a little checklist.

It makes them realize, wow, you are a trusted advisor. You're really getting me thinking. And now I understand the value of this relationship at a totally different level.

Jen Porter (45:14)
I'm imagining just how different that is for a leader to ⁓ visualize their specific future with the company and the employees and the partners and all of it versus what probably happens a lot. Kathleen is, you know, a consultant comes in and tells them the playbook and then it's like, you know, well, there's nuance that isn't being factored in.

And it's not a formula. It's actually very customized to each stakeholder and that particular business.

Kathleen Lucente (45:48)
Yeah, it's true.

It's the same thing in brand positioning. In the old days, people would do the brand positioning, then they would show up, go do all their research. The communications firm would do all the research. They'd come back, and they'd pull the rabbit out of the hat and say, here's your magic rabbit. And everyone would be like, ooh. But they didn't know how they got to it. So say management changes, and they come in and go, how did we get to this messaging? I don't even know.

then all that smarty pants work kind of goes out the window when you start over again. Whereas if you do brand positioning and then what we do is we do a workshop with the management team at the end and we show them solutions, but it's a talk through process and they come to the conclusion with us as opposed to us saying, here's the magic rabbit. Yes, yes.

Jen Porter (46:32)
Yeah.

and you're co-creating it. And then

of course then there's buy-in and there's ownership and all of that. There's a lot of advantages.

Kathleen Lucente (46:46)
Yeah. then even if somebody changes

out of that executive team, 12 people know, know, 11 are like, well, we were there for that meeting and here's what we were thinking. And that's how we got to this decision. wasn't one CEO in a private meeting with a PR firm that was like, whoop, we came up with this, right? So understanding the value and the shelf life of the work you're doing is really important.

Jen Porter (46:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

when did you start to visualize doing your own thing and creating Red Fan?

Kathleen Lucente (47:17)
I think I started visualizing that ⁓ probably at the last agency I was at.

I realized that my ethics and the way I manage clients was very different. I was in an agency where there was high turnover, but my tech practice had looked next to no turnover at all in clients and my employees as well. And I thought, it's almost like I'm running my own agency within an agency. ⁓ And then just I had a different threshold of ethics and how I ran things. And so I kept like, tucked that in the back of my mind.

before I went off to the corporate world again. And when I was coming back into, moving back to United States, ⁓ I thought initially when I got to Austin that I would just do some consulting. I would start by doing some consulting.

And I went and met with a CEO who wanted to bring his company public and here in town. And I told him, here's my background, all that. And in the end, he kept saying, well, I really need to own you. Like, I really need you to be a full-time employee. And remember, I have little kids at home and I knew I'd work around the clock. I'm just kind of a...

Jen Porter (48:31)
I'm curious, did he

use the word own? Or is that how you heard it?

Kathleen Lucente (48:34)
Yeah, he's like, I heard it that way. It was like,

he could not get his arms around or his head around this idea that I could be the sherpa that helped him through an IPO process without being a full-time employee. And I...

and in an office and at a desk. And of course this is long before, you know, we're where we are today, right? But I went home and I remember I went outside and I sat with my husband and I was crying. said, why do people need to feel like they need to own me? Why do they feel like they need to, you know, have every minute of my day, nine to five, as if I'm like gonna chip them of time or something, you know, or I'm not gonna work.

And ⁓ I said, you know, I've been talking about starting this company. It's time to do it. You know, it's time for me to just be real clear about this is what I'm doing. This is how I'm doing it. ⁓

That was the change, right? And actually it was funny because I had one of my first clients. I didn't have business cards made up and I had started and she handed me a business card with her brand on it with my name. And I was like, oh no, no. Remember I'm a consultant. Like I had to remind people. I'm not, you I don't work for, you you're my client. Like, we go, right? So, and then I had the great opportunity to teach at UT and I won best professor, you know, that.

Jen Porter (49:54)
you

Kathleen Lucente (50:03)
year so I started to realize like yeah I know where I know where I need to be and I know it's time for me to do this.

Jen Porter (50:12)
And what does Red Fan mean?

Kathleen Lucente (50:16)
Well, yeah, this was interesting. Red Fan, this concept of Red Fan just came to me really long ago. I kept thinking, if I ever have a company, ⁓ as I was leaving Hong Kong in particular, I think Red Fan is going to the name. I kind of tucked that in my mind.

And part of it was I was raised by a family of lawyers and judges and teachers. And I remember law firms all do the Smith, Knoll, Crimson, whoever the names are. And I thought, I don't want to go that route. And I always know that agencies are only as good as the people that are in them and the community have and what they're

So, red fan really is my sayonara to the corporate world. ⁓ If you look at it, looks like a little fan hand, you know, saying goodbye. But also, if you look at it structurally, it's feminine, it's right, red, it's bold, but it also has these fins. You know, to create a fan, there are fins that, you know, come down.

Jen Porter (51:02)
Okay.

Kathleen Lucente (51:14)
like to wave yourself, to cool yourself. And each fin is great people, great services, great community, great products, you all those things come together and when they are at the base structurally, that's the nirvana. That's when things really happen. So for me, it's not about one person, it's about how we work together.

Jen Porter (51:36)
Red fan communications. I love it. you know, when, when, before we jumped on here, we were talking about some of our childhood memories and what communications look like way back when. And, ⁓ and your beginnings of entrepreneurship, will you tell the story about your first kind of entrepreneurship job?

Kathleen Lucente (51:38)
Mm-hmm.

sure. Yeah,

this is really funny. I grew up on the North Shore of Long Island and right on a golf course with a road down to the Long Island Sound and there was a

young man who was a little older than I was lived next door and sisters and stuff. And I loved going over there. kind of looked up to him a lot. He taught me how to fish, you know, I didn't have a brother. So he was kind of like, I'd be like, I'll bring you fishing, you know? And one day he was getting ready to go off to Cornell. He was getting ready to go to college and he had started a golf ball business where he was selling golf balls back to golf, you know, the golfers at the golf club. And he said, Kathleen, you could, you could take over my business. And I said, really?

And so I did so he hand drew like a ⁓ guide for me with a tee and a ball on it and it was Kathleen's business I think I was 12 at the time and it became kind of funny because my mom one day was like there's a man in the driveway You know here to buy a hundred golf balls from you and I had balls that were you know had chips in them to use for practice So those were sold at one price and then I had balls that were pristine and perfect and by the way I also had balls had

last name on it. Now I call them the shame balls because you know those were that they were over in the woods and so be careful about putting your name on a ball. ⁓ But it was really really fun and you know I had this experience, sorry an epiphany, I ran into ⁓ Billy the guy who was my neighbor.

And I was at my father's wake, actually. And I hadn't thought about my golf ball business in such a long time. And here I am in my 40s, and he comes up to give me a hug at my father's wake. And I looked at him and I said, Billy, you're part of the reason I'm an entrepreneur. Deep down in my soul, I've always had this in me. And you gave me some of the wings to kind of really think that I could do this. And my mom and my dad were always just like, shocked at who

who was pulling up the driveway to buy balls from Kathleen. I it just, ⁓ I got quite a reputation. So it was really fun.

Jen Porter (54:03)
You

Amazing. And then tell us about your dad and the transition that he made and you watching him make those decisions in his career and as it related to family and what opened up.

Kathleen Lucente (54:19)
Yeah.

My, I would say, I feel like you don't always know how lucky you are about the parents you have until I think often you go off to college and you meet other people and other communities and things like that. But I really reflect on my father, especially, he was a high power attorney in New York City. And when I was in first grade, he decided, you know what, family is more important than, you know, being at a high power law firm where I'm, you know, never home, not seeing

my family and he decided to join the oldest law firm on Long Island and reverse commute. So commute from further out on the island about an hour every day instead of going into the city and he did it for a year to make sure he really loved working at this law firm and then he moved our family out to this beautiful place where we had three acres and the golf course across the street and I could be a Tom Loy going down to the

the waterfront, throwing bottles with messages out to people I don't know, and all the crazy things I did as a youngster. And one of the things that was so vivid for me was he chose family and he still had an incredible profession. And he was available to be my softball coach and my sister's softball coach. just ⁓ when I later in life, one of my first jobs in college, was a...

I came home and I was working as a bank teller and people would come in and my name was on plaque, you know, and people walked up to the bank teller thing and they'd say, are you Larry Kenny's daughter?

And I remember thinking, gosh, I always thought my dad was cool, but like literally everyone loves him. And I realized he had become such a community man in such incredible ways. And while he always left a huge impression on me, I have carried that forward in how I live my life and the choices I've made for our family. I think my husband really looked up to my dad. saw what my father had done and just was like, wow, that's so cool.

There's so much pressure on men and women to make the money and do all the things. And sometimes we have to really sit back and think about, can you have both? And what are you giving up if you don't make smart decisions at different stages of your career? so even moving to Austin, Texas was a really big, bold move for both of us. 20 years ago, we decided to move to Austin, Texas. We first traveled around the United States. My husband and I made a spread

Jen Porter (56:41)
Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (56:56)
sheet of all the things we cared about. We had six locations we wanted to check out and we chose Austin, Texas in the end and bought our house with no jobs, no careers, nothing we have yet. It builds everything from scratch. And I used to say to my husband, we're either cocky, crazy or both. And, and he said, look, we've been, we're pretty far along in our career. We've got great reputation. It's going to work out. And we had an 18 month old and here we are today. We love it. It's worked out great.

Jen Porter (57:14)
you

Amazing.

So what advice would you give to female leaders, those that might be in corporate, but also those who are female founders and or wannabe? You know, they have it in their heart and they maybe they're afraid to take that big leap of faith because it does feel so uncertain and scary. What what have you learned that you would love to pass along to them?

Kathleen Lucente (57:48)
Well, one of the things that I did when I first started thinking about starting Red Fan was I met with a couple of other people who had started their own firms ⁓ as well and kind of asked them like what did they, you know, what had worked, what hadn't worked and.

asked the questions and we weren't looking at each other as direct competitors. It was almost like a community of support. And I think that was really great. And some of those early conversations helped me kind of understand, okay, I know how to be a little bit different. And I've learned some things from that. I do think building a community around yourself is extremely important and having mentors. ⁓ And for example, right now I'm on the board of the BBB here in town and we've just started

an incubator for women entrepreneurs. And we're going to have one here. We're going to have one in Houston as well. And we're actually teaching, yeah, you're starting your business. How do you do the accounting part? Like, how do you learn how to read your books? How do you build your own marketing plan around your business? And so all the things that somebody who's starting a business or even thinking about starting a business or maybe has a business and they haven't had that kind of mentorship, we're surrounding them with all of that for free.

And I think that there are cities that have those types of women community support and look for that. And if you don't have it, you got to build it yourself. But there's plenty of people who are so excited to do that.

Jen Porter (59:04)
Fantastic.

Mm-hmm.

That's so true. So true. People that want to give based on their experiences and it's easy for them because they've been through it. It, you know, I've, I leverage the small business development centers that are usually connected with the chambers of commerce. And back in Virginia, where I started my business and in Colorado, when I moved here and just amazing people that have such expertise that are ready and willing to help in all kinds of ways with.

entrepreneurs and business leaders. It's fantastic.

Kathleen Lucente (59:51)
Well, I was looking at the statistics and every state you should look at ⁓ how much of the state is small businesses. And usually if the economy is really strong and small business, first of all, that's a good place to actually start your business because it means that there's an infrastructure that allows for that support. And so.

you know, when you're looking at where to live or where you think you could be successful doing this, I think it's important to recognize that because you get that community results. you know, here in Texas, there's a lot of big companies, but...

those big companies actually rely a lot on small businesses to function. And what we start to look at, if you go to some of the economic discussions at Chamber of Commerce, you'll start to realize that Samsung here in Austin requires a lot of small businesses to keep them going. And they will say that straight up. They're actually part of the BBB. And so they want to be part of that. And I think that's important to realize that we need to coexist.

And ⁓ that's pretty exciting.

Jen Porter (1:01:00)
Well, you are definitely a lioness and I define a lioness as feminine strength, grace and courage. ⁓ So what is your next lioness brave step that you are gonna take?

Kathleen Lucente (1:01:14)
Well, I think I've been talking about eventually writing a book, which is something I've been really wanting to do. But I think that's a little bit further out. think right now continuing to be an incredible mentor to other women and young men that are

looking at being in this career, this career is evolving quite a bit and helping people understand what that means and what they need to learn in order to do really big value add. I think it's extremely important. And that also keeps me fresh because I like constantly learning. And so it's kind of a mutual love affair there. And I believe that helping other businesses succeed.

Jen Porter (1:01:46)
Mm-hmm.

Kathleen Lucente (1:01:58)
That's just good karma. So that's where I a lot of my energy. But there will be a book in the near future, Jen, probably in the next two years. I'm working on some ideas there. And there's a lot of good stories. ⁓ I've done a couple of interesting things on crisis comms on all the things that you've never seen behind closed doors, what really goes on, what it takes. ⁓ And kind of like that I call it the deodorant commercial.

Jen Porter (1:01:59)
Mm-hmm.

Do you have a focus?

Kathleen Lucente (1:02:25)
you know, never let him see a sweat type moments. don't if you remember those old commercials, but I think that's gonna be part of it. This idea that, you know, when you're in communications, when you're in this role, there's so much that you have to do.

Jen Porter (1:02:27)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen Lucente (1:02:40)
that is in many ways an unsung hero role. And I think that there's so many great unsung heroes that are behind the scenes doing things to help executives. And I think we need to shine a light on them. So I'm going shine a few lights.

Jen Porter (1:02:54)
So true.

So true. I can't wait to follow your story.

Kathleen Lucente (1:02:59)
Well, same here. I can't wait to follow your story.

Jen Porter (1:03:03)
So how can people get connected with you? What's the best way?

Kathleen Lucente (1:03:08)
Well, I'm very active on LinkedIn, Kathleen Lucente, also Red Fan Communications. If you go over to our website, redfancommunications.com, you can reach out to me straight there or Kathleen at redfancommunications.com. And then I also have two newsletters ⁓ from the desk of which I go out and through over the month, I speak to a lot of different executives to kind of find out what their pain points are, what's happening. And then I write a piece that

is pretty on point with, ⁓ you know, there's a through line, if you will, that people can truly connect with. So ⁓ it's a great way to, you know, check out my line of thinking and what I'm able to provide ⁓ executive level, you know, people.

Jen Porter (1:03:54)
Awesome. So we can find that newsletter and sign up for it on the website. Okay.

Kathleen Lucente (1:03:58)
Absolutely. Right on the website.

Yeah. And we, I also just put out a zero click guide as well. This is really because right now just what's happening with SEO and shifting, helping companies understand how to change their marketing dollars towards thought leadership and driving market authority to AI by taking that really seriously and realizing that in the B2B space today, I think it's 85 % of sales. People are pulling up a

based on what they already know on reputation, as well as just doing a search on AI. And if you're not showing up there, you could really be putting your money in the wrong places. And so you have the opportunity to drive that authority and change, just change that dynamic. And it's some smart changes that you can make to really ensure that you're being found and remembered.

Jen Porter (1:04:56)
I'm gonna follow what you're putting out there. I'm gonna sign up for that newsletter because that sounds really interesting. So Kathleen Lucente on LinkedIn and redfancommunications.com. Kathleen, thank you so much for sharing your lioness story with us. ⁓

Kathleen Lucente (1:04:58)
Okay.

Thank you for

having me. It was a lot of fun, a great conversation. enjoyed it.

Jen Porter (1:05:15)
Definitely, me too, me too. And thanks for tuning in everybody until the next episode, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.