Farrell Kramer
Farrell Kramer is the founder and president of Farrell Kramer Communications, a public relations and inbound marketing firm built upon the conviction that it is the power of ideas combined with the reach of technology that drives all effective communications.
Prior to entering public relations, Kramer was an award-winning journalist. He concluded this period of his professional career with The Associated Press, where he was an investigative reporter on the AP’s Special Assignment Team. There, he worked on a number of interesting projects including an award-winning, five-part national series looking at illegal child labor in America. This series was nominated by the AP for the Pulitzer Prize. Other major stories included a computer-assisted expose on Navy oil spills and an investigation of firearms used in the Jonesboro, Ark., schoolyard massacre.
Kramer also served on the AP’s Business News Desk, covering both mergers and acquisitions and the media industry, as well as in the news cooperative’s New York City Bureau. Prior to that, Kramer was a financial writer with Investor’s Business Daily, where he wrote about management issues as well as transportation and manufacturing.
Upon leaving journalism, Kramer joined the public relations firm Robinson Lerer & Montgomery, where he was a senior vice president implementing programs for overall corporate positioning, financial communications, investor relations, crisis communications, transactions and executive communications. Kramer worked with clients of all sizes, from large public companies to start-ups.
Kramer graduated from Northwestern University with a master’s degree in Journalism and the University of Chicago with a bachelor of arts in Far Eastern Studies. Between the two, he spent a year living in rural Japan teaching English as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program.
He is a writer and speaker on many aspects of communications, particularly the intersection of ideas and technology.
Sharon Bially
Sharon Bially is vice president at Farrell Kramer Communications, where she leads media relations campaigns and develops public speaking programs for client firms. She also works with Farrell Kramer to design and implement comprehensive client marketing programs. Her work covers sectors ranging from wealth management and financial services to senior care, real estate and M&A.
Drawing on a broad expertise working with authors to develop books and bring them successfully to market, Bially helped launch Farrell Kramer Communications’ book services program offering support for client book projects.
Bially brings clients the benefit of a strong background public as well as private sector communications. She began her career in the international arena, first at the Council on Foreign Relations as manager of a nationwide information program on U.S. foreign policy, and later, with the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) in Paris. There she was responsible for promoting the global business community’s views on economic policy decisions made by the OECD. While in Paris, she also worked at the local bureau of NBC News. Prior to joining Farrell Kramer Communications in 2004, Bially was financial products marketing coordinator for a Boston-area accounting firm.
Bially holds a bachelor of the arts in international relations and French from Tufts University, and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she specialized in economic policy and business. A fiction writer and author, Bially is an honorary guest contributor to the award-winning blog Writer Unboxed and has developed a combined novel and blog that crosses the boundary between books and social media.
Karen Ott Mayer
Karen Ott Mayer focuses on the written word at Farrell Kramer Communications, penning everything from press releases to bylined articles tailored specifically to each client’s style and needs.
An award-winning professional writer with a broad range of experience, Mayer has specialized in commercial and corporate communications for business clients as well as articles for magazines and other publications. She has written literally hundreds of stories on numerous topics including healthcare, business and horticulture.
Earlier in her career, Mayer worked for the spinal division of Medtronic Sofamor Danek, an international orthopedic corporation where she managed both domestic and international operations groups, developed and wrote policies, and assisted in system conversions.
Mayer graduated with honors from The American University’s School of International Service located in Washington D.C., where she earned a bachelor’s degree in International Studies with a concentration in Western European studies and French.