An expert in crisis communications, strategic messaging and executive coaching, Dave is the founder and president of Spoken Word Communications, a global media and crisis communications training firm located in Houston Texas. Prior to that, he had a successful career as a journalist for more than a decade. Dave’s journalism career began as an assignments editor at KXAS-TV in Dallas, TX. He then launched his “on-air” career at KTXS-TV in Abilene, Texas. Dave then became one of the youngest reporters ever to grace the airwaves at legendary WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas. In 2002 he was hired to run the Houston, Texas offices of Fox Sports Net.

In 2007, Dave left the media and began counseling CEOs and other senior executives of global Fortune 500 companies. Since then, he has provided counsel to executives in over 25 countries around the world and worked with 5 of the Top 10 Fortune 500 companies. He has also worked regularly with the CEO of the world’s largest company, based in the Middle East.

Dave’s professional career has taken him to places such as Singapore, Russia, Brazil, Dubai, China and Saudi Arabia. Dave graduated from The University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in Business Administration.

Glenn van Zutphen is the Singapore-based consultant for Spoken Word Communications handling all of the company’s training throughout the ASEAN (Asia-Pac) and Middle East regions.

In 28 years as a professional journalist for CNNI, CNBC Asia/Pacific (and others) and a published author, he has done most editorial jobs in print, radio and television news while living and working in the U.S., Japan, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore. He has been published globally in countless newspapers, magazines and online as well as being co-author of the book, “Happy Customers Everywhere.” As the Regional News Editor for CNBC Asia/Pacific in Singapore, he oversaw the daily editorial content and news coverage at the network’s Asia headquarters and for bureaus across Asia.

While an Anchor, Producer & Reporter at CNN International, he helped to cover stories ranging from the NATO-led bombing of Yugoslavia and Millennium celebrations, to Gulf War II and the War Against Terror as well as myriad natural & man-made disasters, political and business events.

Prior to CNNI, Glenn was at Hong Kong’s Wharf Cable Television covering local and regional stories before, during and after the 1997 Handover to China. In Switzerland and Japan he worked for ABC News Radio and USA today newspaper. While in Tokyo he was also a television and radio broadcaster for public station NHK, including producing and hosting the first English-language TV broadcasts of Japan’s National Sport, Sumo wrestling.

Glenn is a member and past-President of the Foreign Correspondents Association of Singapore as well as an active member of the Singapore Press Club. He is also volunteers as Communications Mentor at The Hub start-up lab in Singapore. He is also a past-President of the Atlanta Press Club, the second largest in the U.S.

Glenn holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Southern California and is currently sitting for a Master’s Degree in Digital Media Management at HyperIsland Singapore and Teesside University (UK).

Clive Hawkins is an experienced FTSE20 communication leader with over 30 years’ corporate communication leadership experience, having directed national and international communication programmes under intense government, regulatory, media and public scrutiny.

He is former Global Head of Employee Communication & Media Relations for National Grid plc and was chief media spokesperson between 2001 – 2015, where he directed media relations for M&A, financial results and corporate development activities throughout National Grid’s transformation into one of the largest energy companies in the world.

Clive also led media relations for National Grid’s UK and USA electricity and gas infrastructure developments, where the company invested £3 billion ($4.3 billion) annually on replacing and upgrading electricity and gas infrastructure assets including the development and expansion of the UK’s major LNG storage terminal at Isle of Grain, electricity transmission cable tunnels across London, substations, overhead lines, gas pipelines and compressor stations to connect new supplies of energy to electricity and gas networks across the UK and northeastern region of the USA.

Clive is a member of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Institute of Directors, and European Association of Communication Directors. He is former chair of the communications directorate of the UK’s trade association, Energy UK, and an inaugural member of the Queen Elizabeth Engineering Prize Communication Counsel.

A leading corporate communications executive, Roz Elliott recently retired from DCP Midstream as Vice President, Public Affairs. With almost 25 years in the energy industry with Union Gas Limited, Duke Energy Field Services, and DCP Midstream, Roz has led investor relations, crisis communications and issues management, media relations, brand management, community relations, internal communications and marketing.

In her tenure, Roz has coached and mentored both executives on messaging and strategic communications plans including mergers and acquisitions, capital projects, crisis, IPOs, rebranding, and reorganizations. Roz has experience in the midstream and large distribution utility sectors, as well as health care and university issues management. Roz has significant experience in presentation development, media skills, employee communications, investor earning calls and analyst day events, fundraising, event management, and website design.

Roz served on the Boards of The Denver Foundation and The GLBT Center of Colorado and was awarded the Denver Business Journal’s Outstanding Business Women’s Award for Communications and Media. Roz was also honored for her long term volunteerism by the American Heart Association with two Community Impact Awards in Colorado. Roz holds an Honours BA and Masters of Arts in Journalism from Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.

Roz leads the Canadian office of Spoken Word Communications and in based in Ontario, Canada.

Kevin Cooper, a Houston native, began working in the sports industry upon graduating from Syracuse University in 2001. He interned in the New York Giants public relations department before moving to the expansion Houston Texans in 2002.

While with the Texans, Kevin contributed to the department’s success as he worked his way up to the Senior Director of Communications in 2010.

The Texans won the Pete Rozelle Award, which is voted on the Pro Football Writers Association, recognizing the NFL’s outstanding media relations department that went above and beyond to serve the media four times during his time with the Texans.

Kevin was selected by the Texans to attend the Stanford Enrichment Program for managers, which was set up to find talented managers in the industry in 2006. He was selected by the NFL to work seven Super Bowls during his NFL career.

After his 15th season in the NFL, Kevin joined the Houston Super Bowl Host Committee in January 2016 where he was the Senior Director of Media Relations. He oversaw a successful PR campaign that highlighted Houston on the world’s stage in preparation for Super Bowl LI.

Kevin obtained his broadcast journalism degree from Syracuse in 2001. He resides in Pearland, Texas, with wife Allison, daughter, Alexa, and son, Robinson.

Art Rascon is the recipient of 21 Television Emmys and more than three dozen other National and local reporting awards from press clubs in Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami, including two Edward R. Murrow awards.

Art began his career in Provo, UT and in 1993 joined CBS News as a national correspondent covering such events as the Oklahoma City bombing, Peru’s hostage standoff and numerous national disasters around the world. During his time at CBS News he interviewed such tyrants as Manuel Noriega and Daniel Ortega.

In 1998 Art joined KTRK, the ABC affiliate in Houston, Texas where he served as an anchor and reporter of numerous Emmy Award winning TV specials and documentaries. While at KTRK, Art covered 3 Papal elections in Rome and served as the lead producer/correspondent on the terror attacks in New York City.

Art also held anchor and reporter jobs in San Antonio, El Paso, Abilene and Los Angeles during his nearly 40-year career.

Art holds degrees from BYU-Idaho and BYU-Provo and is fluent in both English and Spanish.

Zac Emmons brings two decades of experience in professional sports communications to the Spoken Word Group, including a decade leading the communications efforts for one of NASCAR’s most successful venues and two professional soccer teams. He has prepared, briefed and media trained a combined 15 head coaches, three team presidents, three general managers, one new ownership group and hundreds of elite athletes from all over the globe.

Zac got his first experience with crisis communications at Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego when, as a PR intern for the Oakland Raiders, he fielded a phone call from a man who found a wallet belonging to Raiders center Barret Robbins in Mexico the night before the big game. That gave Zac a front-row seat to the team’s response when it learned that its Pro Bowl center had gone missing hours before the biggest game on the planet.

After three seasons in Oakland, Zac moved to Houston and joined the communications staff at the NFL’s Houston Texans. During his seven years with the team, the Texans PR team won the Pete Rozelle Award, given to the league’s top PR staff, three times and he created the organization’s corporate communications program.

Zac left the Texans in 2013 to lead the communications team at Phoenix International Raceway, becoming the youngest track PR director in NASCAR at the time. His tenure in Arizona enabled him to hone his publicity and promotional chops to sell out two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race weekends each year, while helping lead the track through crisis response situations on multiple occasions.

For the last seven years, Zac led all internal and external communications for the Houston Dynamo Football Club, which includes the Dynamo and the Houston Dash of the NWSL. In addition to serving as the primary communications advisor to club ownership and the executive staff, he also spearheaded the response to a variety of crisis situations large and small, developed the messaging strategy for the club’s award-winning rebrand in 2020 and guided the club’s messaging throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

A native Texan, Zac hails from Salado and is a 2001 graduate of The University of Texas at Austin. He is the founder of AIM Communications Strategy and lives in Houston with his wife Callye, son Kyle and dog Willow.

David Strickland is a 40-year broadcast journalist veteran with the last 25 years as a television News Director and Vice President.  Dave is a multi-disciplined journalist with additional experience as a newspaper sports editor and radio play by play announcer.   
 
Dave is known as an excellent leader who has taken average-performing news departments and turned them into market leading organizations. He has over two decades of coaching experience focusing on some of the nation’s top local TV anchors and reporters. Since leaving broadcasting, Dave concentrates on helping business leaders understand how local media operates. He teaches executives how to craft their messaging for maximum effectiveness. Dave also coaches C-Suite executives and corporate managers helping them become strong communicators across multiple media platforms.  
 
As a News Director, Dave has won multiple national awards and numerous Emmys. His work has been honored by FBI Director Robert Mueller, CrimeStoppers and Houston Children’s Charity. 

Anastasiya Bolton, is a seven-time Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, storyteller, and a media expert. She’s spent 22-years telling complex, emotional, impactful stories, working with victims and survivors, local, state, and federal first responders, for-profit corporations, and non-profit agencies all over the U.S. and internationally.

She’s covered mass casualty events, school shootings, line of duty deaths, natural and man-made disasters.

Anastasiya’s told stories from the Olympics in Sochi, Russia, covered hurricanes, including Katrina. Traveled to Aruba looking for Natalee Holloway and reported on the kidnapping of 10-year-old Colorado girl, Jessica Ridgeway. She’s told stories of heroes
and survivors of massive wildfires, including the Marshall Fire in CO. She’s shared the voices of communities impacted by mass shootings, including the Aurora, CO movie theater, the Sutherland Springs, TX church tragedy and the Santa Fe, TX school
shooting. Anastasiya produced investigative stories, reporting on the state of school safety in Colorado post Columbine, and most recently provided a comprehensive account of the crisis at the Texas-Mexico border.

Anastasiya spent more than a decade working for the highly respected, dominant KUSA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Denver. When she moved to Houston in 2018, she produced a national digital-first show for Facebook Watch and then worked on a Texas- wide investigative team that produced television and digital stories for multiple Texas- based stations. Her work aired in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Beaumont, Tyler and other cities.

Anastasiya’s work has been recognized by 22 national, regional, and local awards. In 2018 The Rocky Mountain Victim Law Center recognized Anastasiya with the Victims’ Rights Champion award for her work on a story that helped change Colorado law,
guaranteeing victims access to information on their incarcerated offenders.