Jeff Caponigro (pronounced CAP-uh-NEE-grow), founder and President and CEO of Caponigro Public Relations is one of the United States’ most experienced and respected public relations professionals – especially in the areas of crisis communications, media relations, branding and reputation-management. He also has a special expertise in training individuals in public speaking, developing and delivering presentations and in coming across most effectively in news-media interviews.
 He is the author of one of the most popular public relations books called THE CRISIS COUNSELOR: A step-by-step guide to managing a business crisis (McGraw-Hill/ Contemporary Books), named by New York-based PR WEEK magazine as one of the “10 best PR books ever written.” The book is published in English, Chinese, Norwegian, Polish and Danish.
He is one of only a few public relations professionals in the United States who has been inducted into the Public Relations Society of America’s College of Fellows, recognizing lifetime achievement of the United States’ top PR professionals. He is Accredited in Public Relations and is a former board member of the Universal Accreditation Board, which governs the PR Accreditation process throughout the world. He was awarded PRSA’s highest national award, the Silver Anvil, for the public affairs program to encourage passage of safety-belt use laws in 48 states and increase national safety-belt use by 300 percent. The multi-year PR program was named by PR Week magazine as one of the “20 Greatest PR Campaigns.” He also has received national recognition for his crisis-management work on the largest recall in the history of the automotive industry at the time – the 1995 recall of seat belts. He has worked on hundreds of crisis situations with corporations of all types and sizes, non-profit organizations, professional athletes and other individuals.
He established Caponigro Public Relations in 1995 and it has become one of the country’s most respected public relations firms. His agency has been named one of the nation’s five best “crisis and issues management firms” and “public affairs firms” by New York-based THE HOLMES REPORT. His firm was the first public relations agency to earn ISO 9001:2000 certification for its quality practices and procedures. Caponigro Public Relations won the nation’s top award for PR firms, called the SABRE Award, in the category of “Client Service.”
Caponigro previously was Chairman and CEO of another public relations firm called Casey Communications Management, Inc., which, at the time, was the largest public relations firm in Michigan and owned by Shandwick Worldwide. He was with Casey Communications for 11 years. Before that position, he was a Vice President for another Detroit-area public relations firm.
He earned his B.A. degree from Central Michigan University, majoring in English and journalism. He served six years as a trustee on the board of Central Michigan University, and two years as the university’s Chairman of the Board. While Chairman, he spearheaded the process to establish the CMU School of Medicine. He was inducted into CMU’s Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009.
He is a popular business speaker who has addressed groups in the United States, Europe and Asia, and is regularly quoted by the news media on topics such as corporate reputation, communications and crisis management. He has appeared on more than 150 radio interview programs on the subject of crisis management. He has been featured in cover stories in Private Clubs magazine and the Detroiter magazine.
His civic/community involvement includes being a former board member and Chairman of Metropolitan Affairs Coalition in Detroit and a graduate, former board member and Chairman of Leadership Detroit. He currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory board in the School of Business for St. Leo University in Tampa, FL. He is a former board member of Walsh College and Harper Hospital. |
