PRactically Speaking Houston

PRactically Speaking Houston with Robyn Patterson

• Veronica V. Sopher, PRSA Member and Host • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Welcome Robyn Patterson to PRactically Speaking Houston – the official podcast of the Houston PRSA Chapter.

Robyn Patterson is a senior public affairs strategist with deep experience at the intersection of politics, policy, and media. She served as a spokesperson in the Biden White House, where she led communications strategy on some of the administration’s most complex and high-profile issues—including labor and tech policy, civil rights, and crisis response. In that role, she prepared senior officials for major media interviews, developed cross-agency messaging frameworks, and worked closely with national reporters to shape coverage during fast-moving events.

Before joining the White House, Robyn served in senior communications roles at the U.S. Department of Commerce and in the Office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, helping to navigate legislative negotiations, economic messaging, and media engagement at the highest levels of government.

Today, Robyn is building the public affairs practice at Allison Worldwide, a leading marketing and communications agency. In this role, she advises companies, coalitions, and philanthropic organizations on how to navigate today’s evolving policy landscape, communicate with credibility in polarized environments, and respond strategically to reputational risks. She specializes in helping clients apply campaign-style communications strategies—message discipline, stakeholder engagement, and rapid response—to private sector and nonprofit challenges.

Be sure to join us for our Networking Luncheon:  Shaping Power: How Strategic Communications Influence Policy, Perception, and Public Trust

Date: February 11 

Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Location: Houston-Galveston Area Council 3555 Timmons Ln #100 Houston, TX 77027

High Stakes. High Visibility. High Impact.

Join us for a powerful conversation with Robyn Patterson, senior public affairs strategist at Allison Worldwide and former spokesperson in the Biden White House. Robyn will share an inside look at how high-level communications strategies are developed and deployed when the stakes are highest.

Join PRSA Houston for a timely and practical discussion on communications that shape outcomes when it matters most. Don’t just respond—lead.

Sign up and learn more about Robyn. Register here: https://prsahouston.starchapter.com/meetinginfo.php...

Connect with Robyn Patterson at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robyn-patterson/

Connect with Veronica V. Sopher at:
Website: https://www.veronicavsopher.com/
Social:@VeronicaVSopher

Learn more about the PRSA Houston Chapter, our events and opportunities at www.prsahouston.org.

PRactically Speaking Houston is brought to you by Veronica V. Sopher, Public Relations.

Veronica Sopher:

Hello and welcome to PRactically speaking Houston. This is the official podcast of the Houston chapter of prsa, and I am your host, Veronica Sopher. I get the opportunity to bring amazing guests onto our podcast so we can keep the conversation going about public relations and communications and some of the elements of marketing and advertising that really come in and help us get our message out there. So very excited about today's guest, Robyn Patterson. She'll be joining here in just a second. But before we get this episode started, I want to make sure you hit subscribe. We don't want you to miss any episode of PRactically speaking Houston, and if you're watching on Facebook or LinkedIn YouTube, drop us some comments, because we'd absolutely love to connect. Otherwise, you can just download us from your favorite podcast platform. So let's go ahead and get this episode started. Joining me is Robin Patterson, welcome to the podcast.

Robyn Patterson:

Thanks so much for having me. Veronica, it's good to be here.

Veronica Sopher:

Awesome. So excited about our conversation, because we're going to actually get an opportunity to meet in person really soon.

Robyn Patterson:

No, yeah, I'm excited to come down to Houston. I'm a native Texan. I'm from Dallas originally, and so excited to get back home, and I promise not to have too many jokes about Houston being the second best big city.

Veronica Sopher:

Well, that's okay. The good news is we have HEBs here. So, you know, you'll get a chance to to really get some good Houston stuff that sometimes is a little harder to get in Dallas. But that's okay. We won't hold it against you. So Robin, tell us a little bit about first before we start talking about you coming down to Houston and what we're going to be talking about why you're here. Tell us a little bit about your background. Kind of set the stage for the context of how you got to be an expert in where you're at.

Robyn Patterson:

So I happy to I, as I mentioned, I'm originally from Texas. I'm a Dallas site, and I am also a recovering political operative. I worked in government politics for about 10 years, and the way I got started, I was I was a debate kid in high school. I spent all of my weekends and all of my free time doing policy debate, traveling across the country, talking about government, talking about big problems. And so when it came time to figure out what I was going to do in the world, it made the most sense to move to Washington and to try and work for politicians. And so I have spent about the past 10 years working at the highest levels of government and politics. I was a spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I advised more campaigns like a count across the country, and most recently, I was a White House spokesperson under President Joe Biden, where I helped respond to everything from bridge collapses to train derailments to terrorist attacks. And so if there's a there's a good chance that if you read about something bad happening in the news or something disruptive over the last several years, I was helping respond to it, and that's a lot of what I do now in my current role as a senior vice president Allison worldwide. As you know, we live in a very volatile time politically, but also technologically. Folks are really having to adapt to rapid change, to very large news events that are on the radars of everyone and that folks have to respond to. And so I get to help corporate leaders, nonprofits, really, all types of organizations, respond to those items.

Veronica Sopher:

So tell me a little bit about because obviously your government background in the political space, a lot of similarities to for profits, but you mentioned helping companies now, what are some of the things that are similar and some of the things that are significantly different, because some of us have a nonprofit background, some of us are coming from a very specific industry, whether it's healthcare or tech or oil and gas, but there are some similarities that really tie the work we do together, and I'd love to get some insight from you on what those might be definitely.

Robyn Patterson:

So what I've learned is that no matter what you're responding to, the communication challenges are the same, and so were the imperatives. And so when I worked at the White House, when I worked at cabinet agencies, and now when I'm working with corporate and nonprofit leaders, we really do the same exercise, which is, we define our values, because our values help us determine where we're going and really what we stand for, which is very helpful in crises. Is helpful for steering broader plans, and it's helpful for determining priorities when we're thinking about long term investments, when we're thinking about how we communicate with others. Once you have those values set, you have to use them to establish a narrative when you talk about the work that you do, when you talk about the communities that you serve, and what you really put forward into the world, and ultimately, once you have those things, they help you build trust and credibility with the people that you serve. But all those things work together, and whether you are a president responding to a bridge that's collapsed and you have to talk about search and rescue efforts and economic recovery and rebuilding. It, or you're a CEO who's having a talk about how AI is changing the way that you interact with your customers, or how you're working with your workforce to integrate AI to make them better at what they do. Having those values and that narrative beforehand is really helpful for building that trust and credibility. You need to communicate an effective message, absolutely.

Veronica Sopher:

And, you know, we talk about the response, and you mentioned crisis a couple of times, but you also mentioned a couple of things that are, I think are important, and that is the proactive work that we do ahead of time. You talked about controlling the narrative. Dig a little bit deeper into that, I think, because I think for a lot of us, we're either on the crisis response side or we're on the proactive strategic planning side, and how they how they marry at some point in the middle.

Robyn Patterson:

Yeah, what I found is that they really have to go together, and it's best when there is some integration, even if there are folks working on different sides of the issues, being able to come together and work on plans beforehand is the most critical piece if you haven't done the work before crisis occurs, to think about your broader messaging, to think about communicating those values, to make sure that people know when something bad happens, whether it is a change in leadership, whether it is a social media post from a one of your employees, whether it's a bad client interaction, if you haven't done the work beforehand to build that trust and credibility with the people that you serve, to make sure they understand where you stand and what you provide, then you're not going to be able to communicate that in the crisis. You're not going to have the goodwill, you're not going to have the standing and you're not going to have that muscle memory of talking about what you deliver that you really need when, when things are tough. And so what I found is that doing the crisis work beforehand, alongside the folks, thinking about the big picture, long term planning is critical and really helps organizations get ahead and be ready for tough times?

Veronica Sopher:

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's so very true. And thinking about AI and being prepared ahead of time, how does AI really help in the work that you're doing right now for your clients? Is that a tool you mentioned technology early on? Is that a tool you guys have embraced? Are you cautious? How in the in the space that you're in, how does it play? How is it being placed?

Robyn Patterson:

Yeah, I think with anything new, you always have to be somewhat cautious. That is what we do internally, and that is what we advise our clients to do, because as of right now, AI is just not in the place where it's something that you can entirely rely on, and you're always going to need a human touch. People have judgment, they have experience, they have wisdom that really helps inform every part of the work that folks do. And so we use it a lot to monitor trends. We use it a lot to see what's going on in the world, what's happening on social media, to do analyzes to help our clients to find sentiment, to figure out how their clients are feeling, but then really to use that data and use the analysis that we get from it to inform the work that we do. We say, See AI as an input that is really helpful for making decisions, but ultimately, the decisions need to be made by folks who have the experience and the expertise and the earned wisdom through tough times through better times, to really implement it.

Veronica Sopher:

Well, yeah, no, I love that. It's just another data point. You know, for some folks, yeah, that makes complete sense. So shifting gears just a little bit. Talk to us about you coming to Houston, and the conversation that you're going to share with us, the insights you're going to share. What can attendees expect when they come to the event? Well, I'm

Robyn Patterson:

excited to get to Houston, largely because the weather here in DC right now. I know it's probably not that much better

Veronica Sopher:

to Houston right now, but I'm not today. By the time you get here, we'll be back.

Robyn Patterson:

Yeah, exactly. I definitely miss my Texas weather here on the East Coast, but I'm really excited to help folks apply the tactics that we use, used in the White House, use on campaigns, use on Capitol Hill to the work that they do in the private sector or the nonprofit sector, a lot of a lot of communication challenges like I mentioned, are the same. We have the same imperatives. We have the same goals. But because in politics, you have elections, you have polls that come out, you have to respond to most major events. It leads to folks having a speed on the way that they work. It leads to folks having to communicate more precisely, not have the same long, long window that folks have in the in the private sector, and so being able to apply those tactics to the work that folks are doing day in and day out. Excited to help them do that and really help them determine how they establish those values that we talked about. Build that narrative to ultimately have that trust and credibility. That is where that I have found. You know, the work needs to be done, no matter where you are, and being able to use that public sector campaign framework for doing work in the private sector, I think, is invaluable skill set.

Veronica Sopher:

And I think one of the things as we talk about the luncheon and what people might expect. You talked a little bit about reputation management, or we when we invited you, that was part of the conversation reputation management. Tell us a little bit about why that's so much more important today than it was maybe five or 10 years ago, definitely.

Robyn Patterson:

I mean, part of it is just the world that we live in. Politically, there is always something in the news that leaders are being called on to respond to. In some instances, it's something that affects their business directly, and other times, it's not. And so the need to be ready to determine what your stances are or how your processes responding to things is more critical than ever, and then also social media. It moves faster than it ever has before, whether it's on Twitter, whether it's Tiktok, whether it's Instagram, every interaction, every tweet, everything can end up going viral or having an impact on your business or the people that your organization serves. And so thinking about reputation management from a holistic perspective, about not just how you're showing up in press releases or on the newspaper, but also what folks are posting about you on social media, and how you're able to respond to those things quickly, is critical, because things move so fast these days, and you'll find something happens at 10pm at night, and then you wake up in the morning, and your mentions are very different than when you went to sleep, and so having processes to respond to those things, to think about reputation management beforehand, is absolutely critical.

Veronica Sopher:

Yeah, no, and I'm very excited, and that's when we talked about the luncheon, and what people could expect that was the one I honed in on, just because that's really it's very close to the work that I do. And I think for some of us, it's maybe a secondary or even a tertiary priority, but the truth is, we've got to be watching it all the time. So I love how you how you framed it. Anything else you think attendees will get out of your presentation? And it's for those of you that don't know, the details and a link are in the show notes, but it is February 11, from 1130 to one. We will be at the Houston, Galveston Area Council, 3555, Timmons lane. All the details are down below, but I want you to make sure that you bring someone with you, because Robin's got some great insight. So Robin, what else do you think folks we're going to get out of this presentation,

Robyn Patterson:

I'm excited to speak with the folks in Houston. I think what they'll take away is really hopefully better processes, or at least more informed processes, processes for doing the work that they do every single day. I know prsa members are some of the best communicators that we have, who have a lot of training, have a ton of experience, but if they can get that campaign mindset, if they can get that campaign influence and insight into how they do their work, I think they'll come away a lot better for it.

Veronica Sopher:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm so excited to hear you. So Robin, how can people connect with you before and after the presentation, especially if anyone can't make it, but they are like that. She's really knows what she's talking about. I need to figure out where to connect with her. How do folks reach you?

Robyn Patterson:

I am on LinkedIn. I'm fairly active and very responsive, and so happy to connect with folks there. Also, like every active or recovering political operative, I am on Twitter, I'm sure we can drop my handle in the show notes. But if you're looking to keep up to date or stay in touch, would would love to connect to one of those two places

Veronica Sopher:

that's fabulous, and remind us one more time you're based out of DC and the name of your firm

Robyn Patterson:

also worldwide. We are a global communications and marketing agency, perfect.

Veronica Sopher:

And the link to that, business will also be in the show notes, so make sure you give it a click. All right, Robin, I'm so excited to meet you and in person, and I look forward to your presentation. I know our members are going to get a lot out of it, and I think it'll probably be a packed house, so be ready for a big, warm Houston.

Robyn Patterson:

Welcome. I'm excited for it. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much.

Veronica Sopher:

All right, that wraps up this episode. All of the details for the luncheon are in the show notes. Click it. You want to make sure you get a seat and bring a colleague. There is much we can learn from each other, and here at practically speaking, we're just thrilled at the opportunity to talk to Robin ahead of time and get connected. So if you're watching on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook. Drop us some comments, Rob and I definitely want to connect. Make sure you give her a follow on x and on LinkedIn, and if you are listening on the podcast, make sure you hit subscribe. We don't want you to miss any episodes of practically speaking. Houston, I'm Veronica Sopher, your host, and I will catch you next time you.