Mike Kopp

Mike brings to any discussion in which he engages over 30 years of extensive strategic and communications expertise honed on the front line work of numerous corporate and political campaigns across the nation. Time and again Mike has been hired by executives of successful public, private companies and institutions, as well as music artists who seek his counsel on a wide spectrum of challenges – from branding, to crisis management and strategic positioning. In his early years, Mike worked in small and mid size media markets as a reporter, producer and editor in radio, TV and print, covering government, politics and business. While still in college, Mike was selected to serve as a press aide in his first presidential campaign in Washington, D.C., after which he was asked to serve for eight years as communications director/press secretary for Al Gore in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Since that time Mike has personally been involved in more than 200 campaigns in both politics and business, with clients that have included Gore, numerous Members of Congress, publicly traded corporations and privately held companies. In the political arena, he has worked as a strategist, spokesperson and adviser to presidential campaigns, as well as congressional, state and local candidates. In the corporate arena, Mike has tackled a wide range of community, business development and corporate projects. In addition to private sector experience, he was also tapped for two years to serve as an economic deputy commissioner for the state of Tennessee. Drawing from his early years in journalism, Mike learned the value and power of persuasion that the media possesses, which is why he has continued to invest time and focus into maintaining a firm grasp of the evolution of media and the emergence of new media in moving the dial on public and consumer perception of people, products and services. An avowed social media junkie, Mike has developed and executed grassroots efforts that have involved creating and disseminating content – from the written word to audio and video - that has viral appeal on the many facets of the Internet, including social networks, affinity and news Web sites and the blog sphere. Mike frequently gets tapped to do public speaking to national and regional conferences on communications and media concerns, and also to offer political and business commentary to radio and TV programs in the Southeast region where he currently resides.