Alice Chapman and Andrew Maraniss have been named partners at Nashville-based McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations, and Jennifer Brantley has been promoted to senior vice president. All had been vice presidents.
Chapman and Maraniss are the first new partners at MP&F since 1998.
“These talented managers have been leaders here for a long time, and with the growth we project over the next few years, their skills and experience will be very important to continue our focus on quality client service and being a destination workplace,” said MP&F Senior Partner Mark McNeely.
Chapman joined the firm in 1995, Maraniss arrived in 1998, and Brantley celebrates her 20th anniversary with MP&F this year. Through the years, all have been involved in high-profile communications campaigns at the local, state and national levels, producing award-winning work on behalf of clients in a wide range of industries.
Other partners at the firm, which is the largest in the state, are Mike Pigott, David Fox, Katy Varney and Keith Miles.
Chapman joined MP&F as a staff associate and has since worked for a variety of clients at the local, regional and national levels. Her specialties include grassroots campaigns, media relations and event planning. She was one of the MP&F staff members who helped gain clemency for former death row inmate Gaile Owens. MP&F’s pro bono campaign on behalf of Owens won the SABRE Award, the public relations industry’s highest honor. Her current clients include AT&T and the Tennessee Alliance for Early Education. Previous clients include the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour Nashville and Metro Nashville’s recycling education campaign, both of which garnered MP&F the Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America.
Chapman is actively involved in the Nashville community. She is a longtime member and former board member of the women’s networking organization CABLE. She received the Civic Outreach Award from that group in 2006. She is a member and former board member of The Women’s Political Collaborative of Tennessee and a past president of the children’s literacy nonprofit Book’em. Chapman is the 2011 recipient of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Nashville Emerging Leaders Award for Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing, an award which she was nominated and was a finalist for in 2009. Chapman is a graduate of Young Leaders Council (Class 41) and is a 2012 ATHENA Young Professionals nominee.
A Nashville native, Chapman holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee.
Maraniss, a native of Washington, D.C., joined McNeely Pigott & Fox after spending the previous six years in athletic media relations. He specializes in writing and media relations, working with a diverse mix of clients including CSX Transportation, Hennessy Industries, Hyde Family Foundations, Manheim Consulting, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, Tennessee Charter School Incubator and Qualifacts.
Maraniss has long provided pro bono public relations support to Nashville RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) and is a past board chairman of the organization. He has been recognized by his peers as MP&F’s Staff MVP and Best Writer on multiple occasions and was a finalist in the inaugural Nashville Emerging Leaders Awards.
Maraniss came to MP&F after serving as media relations manager for major league baseball’s Tampa Bay Devil Rays during the team’s inaugural season of 1998. Prior to that, he spent five years as associate director of media relations at the Vanderbilt University athletic department. A 1992 Vanderbilt graduate, Maraniss attended VU on the Fred Russell - Grantland Rice sportswriting scholarship. He is currently writing a book on former Commodore Perry Wallace, the first African-American basketball player in the Southeastern Conference.
Brantley’s specialties include account management, strategic planning, research, public relations, media relations and event planning. Since joining MP&F in 1992 as an intern, Brantley has worked with such clients as Baptist Hospital, Colonial Pipeline, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, West Tennessee Healthcare, LUNGevity Foundation, Republic Services and Western Baptist Hospital.
Her event planning and national media experience stems from such clients as Breathe Deep Nashville, the Gospel Music Association, nine Family Re-Union conferences hosted by former Vice President Al Gore and the Southern Festival of Books. For these clients her responsibilities ranged from coordinating media relations, logistics and fundraising efforts for a 5K to benefit lung cancer research to media coverage for a nationally televised award show, to managing a “writers in the school” program, to coordinating national and local media coverage with the press offices of the president of the United States and the vice president. A native of McMinnville, Tenn., Brantley has a B.S. degree in public relations from Middle Tennessee State University.
