Fractional Communications
Leadership
Senior-level communications leadership without the cost and commitment of a full-time hire
Ready to turn your expertise into impact?
Struggling to move the needle on key priorities? Navigating staff reductions, temporary leaves or new demands?
If you are looking for outside perspective to help reimagine strategy, strengthen visibility or integrate AI more intentionally into your research communications efforts, then our Fractional Communications Leadership solution could be a good fit for your team.
This engagement provides embedded strategic communications leadership to help organizations tackle their most pressing communications and positioning challenges. That may involve promoting a new initiative, strengthening thought leadership, attracting funders or partners, aligning messaging across teams or building AI-enabled communications workflows that improve efficiency without sacrificing quality.
Every engagement is tailored to your goals. As needed, we leverage the Knowledge-to-Impact Framework: a flexible approach designed to help organizations translate expertise, research and ideas into visibility, engagement, opportunity and real-world impact. The focus is always on identifying the communications pathways most aligned with your organization’s priorities.
Rather than functioning as an outside vendor, I operate as a strategic partner — bringing 25+ years of experience helping universities, research centers, healthcare organizations and mission-driven teams communicate with greater clarity, credibility and purpose.
The benefits are tailored to your context.
- Greater alignment between communications activities and organizational priorities
- Flexible strategic support tailored to evolving organizational needs
- Experienced partnership grounded in 25+ years of communications leadership
- AI-enabled communications workflows that improve efficiency and impact
- Reputational influence
- Increased credibility
Trusted by Leading Academic Institutions
“Kevin Anselmo delivered a workshop on Thought Leadership, designed to help faculty write about our research for blogs, LinkedIn, etc., specifically in order to communicate the managerial importance of our research. It was very enlightening and energizing. We were given a set of guidelines to follow, making it easy to think about what aspects of our research would resonate with an external audience. Kevin was organized, interesting, and had a lot of great examples that faculty could identify with.”
Cheryl Druehl
Faculty at the George Mason University School of Business
“Kevin Anselmo engaged a sizeable – and initially skeptical – group of senior faculty leaders in a lively, hands-on workshop on enhancing strategic communication about research and creative work. Our group left energized, more confident in their ability to gain visibility for complex findings and programs, and grateful. Bravo!”
Rogan Kersh
Provost Wake Forest University
“As a media relations professional in higher education and health care, I found Kevin’s experiential approach and practical expertise to be energizing for our professors, doctors and hospital leaders who attended his workshops. Instead of generalized advice, Kevin created an individualized training plan that encouraged each attendee to identify their own area of expertise and learn to talk about their knowledge more succinctly. Following the training, we have cultivated relationships with at least a dozen new faculty experts.”
Christen Engel
Sr. Associate Vice President of Communications, Augusta University & Health System
“Kevin Anselmo provided our faculty with an all-day training workshop on the use of social media to advance their research efforts. Throughout the workshop he continually provided new insights on how these platforms can be used to expand one’s impact and visibility. Some of our faculty are quite media savvy, but even the most knowledgeable were learning many new things from Kevin. He is very good at reading his audience and moving things along at the right pace to keep everyone engaged. He was even able to provide a luddite such as myself with valuable takeaways that have proven very impactful!”
Joe Phillips
Dean of the Albers School of Business at Seattle University
“Translating our research into audience-friendly articles has significantly expanded our impact, often leading to unexpected collaborations. Kevin Anselmo of Experiential Communications tailored a workshop to enhance our research team’s communication skills, resulting in well-received content shared on our blog and external media outlets. This improved ability to convey our research findings promises long-term benefits.”
Aline Holzwarthps
Principal of Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University
“Kevin Anselmo provided communications training for schools at the North American Society for Sociology of Sport annual conference. The training was well received and well attended. Kevin did a great job giving real examples that helped our membership make connections to their own engagement with media outlets. He was professional, well prepared, engaging and most importantly very knowledgeable.”
Theresa Walton- Fisette
President of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport
“To help our researchers define and tell their stories, we brought in Kevin Anselmo to provide a series of strategic communications workshops. Kevin truly understands academics and researchers and he was exceptional at tailoring his materials to the context of our organization. There was plenty of ‘hand-on’ in-class and between-class coursework for participants to put into practice what they learned. These experiential aspects of the workshops, in turn, helped cement learnings and instill confidence. In course evaluations, every respondent indicated they would recommend it to their other colleagues. And for marketing and communications leaders like me who work in a research-based organization, this training is a great way to build brand ambassadorship and extend your resources. By enabling researchers to tell their own story, your organization’s impact multiplies. Highly recommend!”
Theresa Walton- Fisette
Former Director of a research contract organization
Experiential and Customized
My approach to fractional communications leadership is highly experiential, collaborative and adaptable. Rather than delivering static communications plans that sit on a shelf, I work alongside organizations to help apply strategy in real-world situations and evolving communications environments. That may involve supporting leadership messaging, helping teams navigate media opportunities, building thought leadership initiatives, strengthening stakeholder engagement or identifying practical AI-enabled workflows that improve efficiency and impact. The focus is always on helping organizations make meaningful progress toward the goals that matter most to them.
Flexibility is central to every engagement. Some organizations need strategic guidance and executive counsel. Others need hands-on support developing messaging, creating content, facilitating workshops or helping teams align around communications priorities. Because every institution, initiative and leadership team is different, the engagement evolves based on changing needs, opportunities and organizational realities. The goal is not simply to provide communications support, but to serve as a strategic partner who helps organizations communicate with greater clarity, consistency and purpose.