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Women in Business Awards 2024

Winners of the 30th annual Women in Business Awards were unveiled Aug. 27.

This is one of ABJ’s longest-running events, and it’s one of the most fruitful for making meaningful connections and identifying current and future leaders of our economy.

Winners and finalists span all business sectors. This year, Tiff’s Treats co-founder Tiffany Chen was honored with the inaugural special achievement award.

Winner: Jenna Gruhala-Oltersdorf

CEO, Snackbox

During her younger days as a drag racer zooming down tracks in a 1972 Corvette, Jenna Gruhala-Oltersdorf wasn’t deterred by being the only female in the competition.

That maverick style has carried over to her professional life, where she hasn’t been afraid of taking risks and is known for focus, dedication and selflessness as CEO of Snackbox, the Austin-based public relations firm she founded.

Her introduction to the PR industry was at St. Louis-based The Vandiver Group, where Gruhala-Oltersdorf said she learned to write, pitch clients and master the skills necessary to succeed in the field. From there, she moved to Charlotte to work on bigger accounts like NASCAR and Levi’s, and a short time later landed what at the time was her dream role at Edelman, where she worked on large accounts like Burger King and Kraft. That was when the idea for Snackbox was born, prompting Gruhala-Oltersdorf to move to Austin to pursue it.

“Austin was where Snackbox really took off,” she said. “Not only was the Austin business community incredibly supportive, but we also had the chance to open our first office, grow our team and help shape the city.”

At the company, she’s earned a reputation for mentoring others, holding weekly one-on-one meetings with staffers to provide real-time feedback and help them work through challenges, and she has rethought traditional employee evaluations to make them more actionable. She also established what she calls a PR Finishing School, where she offers advice and resources to those looking to break into the industry.

Gruhala-Oltersdorf is active in the community as well, describing volunteer work as a cornerstone of her identity. Girls Inc., which fosters leadership skills in young women, is among the nonprofits she holds dear, calling it “a tremendous conduit to helping the next generation.”

How do you lead in your company and community? What is your leadership style? 

I prefer to lead by example. Our team knows work/life balance is essential to me, and I work hard to show them it’s possible. I’m very hands-on both in our work and in our team’s career paths. I firmly believe that everyone has different abilities, and we must cater to them. I don’t force them into a job role or title; instead, we work together to play off of their interests and bests.

How do you give back to the community, inside and outside of the workplace? 

Volunteering is the cornerstone of me as a person. From influencing our clients to give back in big ways to sitting on boards to volunteering my time, there is nothing better than giving back. I don’t volunteer to get my name in lights. Instead, I volunteer to help others.

How has your career developed and changed over time? What are your professional goals?

My career has drastically changed over time. … Every city (that became a stop along the way) brought its own chapter and its own challenges. All of that experience allowed me to start Snackbox, but the growth didn’t stop there. Nearly 18 years into Snackbox, I still marvel at what I’ve learned. There are still many firsts to experience. In fact, last month, I started working on my first international crisis. While I’m not the spokesperson, anyone can read the words I’ve written, and that is quite an honor. For professional goals, I still have a lot to accomplish. I hope to be able to expand my PR Finishing School, to grow our team (not just in size but also in skill) and expand our footprint into other cities.

To see the full story, click here.

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Pluckers Expands in Houston

Pluckers Wing Bar, the Texas-based wing chain, continues to expand throughout Texas, opening a brand new location in Meyerland (8731 W Loop S.) just minutes from downtown Houston with the grand opening on April 22.

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Work-Life Balance: A Key Ingredient to Success

You know you’ve achieved work-life balance when the demands of your job aren’t getting in the way of your family, friends and your ability to be a happy you.

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PR Horror Stories: What happened and how we survived

While most of us consider Halloween to be the scariest day of the year, public relations crises are, unfortunately, not limited to just one day. Crisis can happen when you least expect it and, no matter how much you prepare, many PR people can be caught off guard. The goal is to plan – as much as possible – for the unexpected.

My First Crisis

The call came in late at night, well after office hours. My supervisor didn’t know much outside of the fact that someone died in a manufacturing facility. We raced to the office, feeling like we’d function better as a team in the same room. As information came in surrounding the tragedy, we learned more about the person who died – a single mom who had been employed by our client for many years. A safety aspect of the machine she worked on did not function properly. She was pulled into the machine and died quickly. A coworker found her.

Our first order of business was to help the president of the company with his public statement. To his credit, he really wasn’t interested in talking with his PR firm – he was upset and concerned for his employee’s family, her children. We had pre-written responses built into our crisis plan for the company, but given the emotion wrapped into this particular situation, we opted to update the language to reflect the president’s feelings.

Once the statement was approved, we shared it with a local newspaper reporter with whom we had a relationship. The reporter broke the story and, as it was picked up, we monitored who covered and made sure the information was accurate. As new information was available through the investigation, we reached out to those who were covering the story to ensure they had the most up-to-date and true details.

My Reoccurring Crisis

Having worked in food and beverage public relations for my entire career, the crisis I see most often relates to a bad ingredient. From spoiling to bugs to a lot of other unsavory things, food manufacturing and preparation has its share of scary things. For the purpose of this post, we’ll refer to them as “bad ingredients”.

The first step in a bad ingredients situation is to identify what caused the problem and determine how we can quickly pull the ingredient from the facility. If the bad ingredient is in multiple stores throughout the country, how can corporate be sure ALL has been pulled? The simplest, but costly answer is the best: Physically visit every location to be sure the pull has happened.

For a voluntary pull, who do you tell? Well, it’s complicated. As you’re pulling stock, have language ready for the employees working closely with the bad ingredient. Instruct them on how to handle public statements and where to pass along media inquiries. We typically ask media to speak with either our main contact with the client or a high-ranking person at our firm.

If there’s a chance the bad ingredient made its way into the hands of consumers, it’s important to communicate concisely and swiftly to ensure they’re protected. Don’t wait until people come forward claiming to be sick, or worse, that loved ones have died as a result of your delay.

 

With any crisis, remain calm and think through every direction the situation could take. Your role as a PR professional is to weigh the options, guide your client on protecting their brand and their customers. In a perfect world, our client’s crisis would stay quiet, behind closed doors … but we aren’t always that lucky. Be honest, be transparent and be empathetic.

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