Spotlight: Charla Muller
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
Markers:
A twenty-year veteran of the PR industry, Charla thought she had seen and done it all. Until she wrote a book that landed her (instead of her client) on “The Today Show,” “The View,” and “Oprah.”
“It’s one thing to pitch the media and to coach clients on how to handle the media,” she said. “It’s quite another to be the one in the spotlight of national television. I like the former much better.”
Charla started her career at Fleishman-Hillard in New York working on national consumer brands like Hershey’s Cocoa, Playskool, Red Lobster and the National Pasta Association. She spent fifteen years at regional agency, Price/McNabb (now Eric Mower & Associates) and for eight years managed the Starbucks Coffee Co. business - from its first North Carolina store in 1996 to more than 1,500 stores in more than 50 markets in 2004.
Schooled in PR strategy, crisis, media relations and special events, Charla is accredited in public relations by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). She graduated from the School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Family:
Charla is the daughter of a long-time agency guy. She later married a fellow agency guy. Their two children appear to be quite lovely and normal despite their agency lineage.
Passions:
Words, reading, food and cooking
Quote:
“One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.” – Evelyn Waugh
