Guest Speaker

Brandi Boatner is an award-winning digital communication, public relations, social media professional and prolific public speaker based in New York City. Currently, she is a member of IBM’s newly formed corporate affairs function supporting global influencer and advocacy efforts across social platforms (includes enablement and activation) both internally and externally for social media driving market education around brand and reputation.

Prior to this role, Brandi was on the internal corporate communications team supporting key initiatives for the Transformation and Culture function, including social media support for the SVP of Transformation and Culture and digital engagement for diversity and inclusion channels while also leading initiatives that drove employee advocacy through social activation. 

Boatner has been recognized and named by PR News as a Changemaker as one of the Top Women in PR and received Honorable Mention for PR Week’s Outstanding In-House PR Professional – an incredible industry honor (2021). 

In late July 2020, Boatner was named by TopRank Marketing as one of the top 20 B2B Influencer Marketing experts to follow. In May 2020, Brandi led social justice communications for Emb(race) – IBM’s response in combating implicit bias, discrimination and racial inequality. 

Boatner is a two-time Hall of Famer having been inducted into the Loyola University New Orleans School of Mass Communications Hall of Fame known as the Den of Distinction, the youngest member ever inducted. She was also honored and inducted into the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) Hall of Fame. 

Brandi is a true advocate for diversity and inclusion serving as a member of IBM’s Diversity and Inclusion Council and also serves as the former chair and current chair of external partnerships for IBM Black Network of New York business resource group. Given her efforts around diversity in the public relations industry, she is one of more than 40 PR leaders featured in the book Diverse Voices: Lessons in Leadership published by the Public Relations Society of America Foundation.  

Boatner is very active in the public relations industry where she holds several leadership positions within the Public Relations Society of America  (PRSA) on both the local and national level. She is the Chair of the PRSA Tri-State District, and a member of the Executive Committee for the PRSA Westchester/Fairfield chapter. Additionally, she is on the Board of Directors for New York Women in Communications (NYWICI) serving as the Chief Programming Officer, a member of the University of South Carolina’ Dean’s Leadership Council, a member of the Board of Directors for the Better Business Bureau of New York City and Hudson Valley and a member of the Advisory Board of Poster House, the first ever museum in the US dedicated exclusively to posters based in New York City.

She speaks all around the US and the world on a variety of industry and marketplace topics. She enjoys reading, music, traveling, shoe shopping, exploring Manhattan with friends and spending time with family in her hometown of New Orleans.