Team Leadership: Our Goal is to Tell Your Story
Ed Lallo, Chief Storyteller
Award-winning journalist Ed Lallo understands the power of stories well told, whether with words, photos or video. His work has appeared in the Dallas Morning News, People Magazine, Time Magazine, The New York Times and the Associated Press, and on CNN and Bloomberg.
Through his corporate work, he has helped expand the boundaries of brand journalism through Newsroom Ink, the first dynamic online newsroom staffed by brand journalists for the Imperial Sugar Company.
This new communications tool gave a company once beset by crisis a strategic platform to address the demands of an ever-changing marketplace.
Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Newsroom Ink launched LouisianaSeafoodNews.com. to give the Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board a way to inform the public about seafood safety and the potential dangers the spill posed to the industry.
Its coverage gave the board and its constituents — fishermen, seafood processors, restaurant owners and chefs — a place to tell their stories.
Ed now uses his skills as a visual artist, a storyteller, and a communications strategist to help create and amplify the message that America IS great, and our job as citizens is to keep it that way.
Springfield Lewis, Strategic Communications Czar
Springfield Lewis is a recognized expert in business communications for FORTUNE 100 companies and other organizations. His communications and marketing career spans journalism, corporate, online agency and consulting work.
He’s helped develop and drive best practices cited by PRWeek, Melcrum Internal Communications and the Executive Communications Council, part of the Corporate Executive Board. They encompass leadership communications, employee engagement and organizational storytelling – as well as creating strategic content and dynamic online communications.
Lewis is a co-founder of The News Group Net, which created the awarding-winning Imperial Sugar newsroom for the Imperial Sugar Company (ISC). The new website proved instrumental in giving the Sugar Land, Texas, company a powerful voice in the industry – improving its reputation as ISC rebuilt its operations after a tragic refinery explosion and fire.
Taking a journalistic approach, The News Group Net produced credible news stories about Imperial Sugar’s commitment to employees, customers and partners. The coverage highlighted its growth, product innovation and industry leadership in new worker safety and manufacturing processes.
These stories offered a more balanced view of ISC’s business in search engine results, which typically displayed negative reports about the refinery disaster. This “brand journalism,” as it’s called, became a steady source for stories picked up by mainstream media.
In the corporate arena, Lewis is a former director of communications for Harris Corporation, a $5B global information technology and communications leader. He also ran an in-house marketing agency and led executive, enterprise and internal communications at EDS, a $21B technology services company that became part of Hewlett-Packard. His career includes communications and marketing leadership roles at IBM’s national and global operations in Atlanta and New York.
Lewis loves consulting with FORTUNE 500 companies, small businesses and nonprofits to architect their communications and tell their stories well. He also speaks about the importance of aligning a company’s content to the executive agenda and putting it in a context to connect with target audiences, strategic storytelling, content development/packaging and digital communications at industry events and institutions – such as Yale University and Southern Methodist University.
