Mary Beth West, APR--Senior Strategist

Mary Beth West delivers competitive impact through strategic communications, helping organizations build relationships and brand reputations with diverse stakeholders who are critical to mission-driven and financial success. 

In her profession and in her 15-year consulting practice – which she sold in January 2018 to Fletcher Marketing PR – Mary Beth’s leadership has forged her national reputation as a bold advocate for communications ethics and integrity as well as for specific issues of importance, such as organizational transparency; sound governance; crisis preparedness; and free speech and free enterprise in a democratic society, which are among her passions. 

Her insights have been included in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Public Relations Strategist and other business publications. Accredited in Public Relations (APR) by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)-affiliated Universal Accreditation Board, Mary Beth is a past recipient of the PRSA Educators Academy’s David Ferguson Award, honoring her national contributions to public relations education.

PRSA inducted Mary Beth into its College of Fellows in 2017, and the nationally renowned Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations counts Mary Beth among the profession’s leaders.

The University of Tennessee honored Mary Beth as its Public Relations Alumna of the Year in 2013 – the first time the honor was bestowed. She serves actively on several non-profit and advisory boards, including the University of Tennessee Alumni Board, the East Tennessee Foundation, the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, First Tennessee Bank, and in an honorary capacity with the University of Tennessee College of Communication & Information board of visitors.

Her award-winning work has included such clients as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Neutron Sciences Directorate, the Smoky Mountain Tourism Development Authority, United Way of Greater Knoxville and a range of campaigns with measurable results in the economic development, industrial recruitment and education advocacy sectors.

A lifelong Tennessean, Mary Beth was born in Nashville and has lived in the Greater Knoxville area for 20 years with her husband, Charles, and their three daughters.