About

Renae brings more than 20 years of public relations, marketing and journalism experience to her role as Founder & Lead Strategist of Own It Public Relations.

As a longtime agency veteran, Renae was most recently a vice president with Hill+Knowlton in their corporate communications practice. She led accounts for large clients such as FiServ, Ford Motor Company, IBM Watson Health, Deloitte, TreeHouse Foods, Dawn Foods, R1 RCM and ClayCo. Notably, Renae led crisis communications preparedness and management for select clients in her role at H+K. 

Previously, Renae worked at independent PR agencies representing corporate, nonprofit, travel, tourism and consumer clients including Charles & Colvard (original pioneer of the lab-created Moissanite gemstone), national nonprofit Catholic Extension, the Chicago Auto Show, Belmond Luxury Trains, American Cruise Lines, MainStreet Financial Advisors, the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce and the Rogers Park Business Alliance, to name a few. Before agency life, Renae was the publicist for the NBC 5 Chicago TV show “24/7 Chicago”. She was the editor of a community newspaper group early in her career.

A true PR generalist, Renae’s industry expertise is vast, including fintech, manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, nonprofit & grassroots, consumer products, jewelry, travel & tourism, food, media, architecture & design-build, oil & gas, economic development and more.

In addition to direct client work, Renae has spent the past several years as an adjunct faculty member with DePaul University’s College of Communication, teaching public relations courses to graduate and undergraduate students in the award-winning PR and advertising program. She also teaches PR to professionals in the continuing education program. 

Renae holds a Master of Business Administration from DePaul University and a Bachelor of Arts from Kalamazoo College. She studied abroad at the American University of Paris and started her career with marketing internships at Firmenich, a global fragrance and flavors company in Geneva, Switzerland, and Universal Music & Video Distribution in Detroit.

Renae is proud to conduct pro-bono work for causes she champions. In recent years, she served on executive planning committees and conducted media relations for Chicago-based events for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She also volunteered as an administrator, social media moderator and press liaison for local grassroots groups supporting refugees resettling in Chicago.