Robert Pierre has provided crisis management, strategic counseling and media solutions to clients including Prince George’s County, National Urban League, National Museum for African American History and Culture, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The District of Columbia, UNCF and Grambling State University.
Robert spent more than two decades in journalism, primarily reporting and editing at The Washington Post. As a reporter, he covered local and state legislatures in the District and Maryland and the heartland of America as the Chicago bureau chief in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Robert was also part of the team of metro reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for coverage of the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007.
Robert was the originator and a key collaborator and writer for the groundbreaking series, Being A Black Man, which was repurposed into a book of the same name. Prior to leaving the Post in 2012, Robert led the formation in 2011 of an internal startup, The Root DC, an online extension of The Root and the Post’s local staff targeting African Americans.
Robert co-authored A Day Late and a Dollar Short: High Hopes and Deferred Dreams in Obama’s ‘Post Racial’ America published by Wiley. Robert is a native of Louisiana and a graduate of Louisiana State University.
A product of Muhammad Ali’s Louisville, Kentucky, Dedra Owens is president and founder of DOT Communications. Her reputation for producing attention-getting campaigns within African American and urban markets has made her a sought-after advisor for international campaigns. As a public relations professional with 30 years in the ever-changing field of communications, she and the DOT Communications team know the ropes, having developed a deep bench of media contacts, creating out-of-the-box media strategies for Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, private foundations, and some of the largest and most historic African American-owned businesses and organizations in the United States including the United Negro College Fund, National Museum for African American History and Culture Smithsonian, United Bank of Switzerland, and Amazon.
DOT Communications has created successful media campaigns wooing the likes of producers and editors from The Washington Post, CNN, NBC Blk, Joe Madison Show, The Root, Crisis Magazine, Sirius/XM Radio, The New York Times, Radio One, and NNPA. Before founding DOT Communications, Dedra began her public relations career with Golin/Harris Communications, one of the nation’s leading public relations firms before joining UniWorld Group, Inc., the nation’s longest-standing full-service multicultural agency. Dedra is a graduate of Howard University, and a resident of Washington, DC. She previously served as president of the Washington, DC Chapter of the Black Public Relations Society.
Jennifer is a highly experienced marketing and public relations expert with over 20 years of industry knowledge. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated exceptional abilities in budget management, project management, visual communication, and statistical analysis, enabling her to accurately predict market trends and assess the current business climate. Her proficiency in written communication, interpersonal skills, and organizational capabilities were cultivated and refined through various roles in the education, retail shopping center, meetings, conventions, and leisure travel sectors.
With a focus on creative marketing, messaging, content creation, and graphics, Jennifer leverages her diverse skill set to help businesses achieve their marketing objectives. She seamlessly combines her expertise as a communications professional and a journalist, boasting a portfolio of published articles and travel guides within the leisure tourism industry.
Jennifer’s crisis communications acumen was honed during her tenure at the Baltimore Convention Center, where she successfully managed and executed communications for an in-house event amidst the Baltimore Uprisings. Despite the city-wide turmoil, her adept coordination with clients, the City of Baltimore, the media, and the local hospitality community played a pivotal role in ensuring the event’s triumph despite the surrounding uprisings.
It was further developed during the COVID-19 Pandemic when the Baltimore Convention Center turned into a field hospital for patient overflow for the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins Hospitals. In addition to navigating communications with federal, state, and city communications teams, Jennifer developed and designed the Meeting Planner Toolkit, a guide for clients, attendees, partners, & contractors doing business with the Baltimore Convention Center during the pandemic.
