I grew up devoted to team sports, and I’ve always been fascinated by team dynamics. In 2020, it’s become abundantly clear that the choices I’ve made in building our KW Content team have been great ones. Pivoting as quickly as we have — to bring a world-class product from concept to market in four weeks — was possible because I have people on my team who mirror my values. To name a few: Compassion, work ethic, and intentionality.

You know where you don’t pick up on those qualities? In an interview. KW Content is three years old but I’ve known the women I’m working with for far more than that. Let me introduce you! 

Caitlin Bergin

Caitlin Bergin is an outdoor enthusiast and social advertising prodigy. We spent several years together at Burton Snowboards, where she came up in the PR and brand marketing departments. We got to know each other — at Burton, the company culture is to work hard, play hard, together. There was no such thing as working harder than Caitlin Bergin. And there is no human in the world that loves to cultivate community in her personal life more than this one. She has a reputation for picking up the new-to-towners, bringing them in, and making them one of her own.

Rachel Shappy

Rachel Shappy is an operational genius with ten years of experience in the field of marketing. We were fortunate to work together at my first independent consulting gig back in 2017. That was our first professional experience, but we’d known each other for years before that. Rachel happened to grow up in the same hometown as my husband, Yianni. Yianni’s brother is in a rock band and as they were coming up in Burlington, Vermont, Rachel and I spent a lot of time in the same place supporting them. What I knew about Rachel before working with her was that she was kind, warm, and so much fun. Hostess with the mostest, Rachel is another one who always seems to bring together all the best types of people for a dinner party. 

Laura Cheney

Laura Cheney. This is a good one. When I moved from New Jersey to Vermont as a middle schooler, my parents put me on a traveling soccer team. Laura was my coach and I was pretty much obsessed with her because of how fun, sincere, community-driven and competitive she was. A decade passed, I graduated from college, and I needed a summer job. After running into an old friend that told me her boss was hiring, I showed up for the interview to find Laura. She didn’t remember me, but I fan-girled over her because I’d thought about her so often over the years that I was coaching kids that were the same age as when I was being coached by Laura. Working at her recycled handbag company in 2010 was the first time I played around with Facebook for business. We became close friends  — dare I say best? — and I was thrilled to have her join the team this past December. She brings so much brand and creative skill and experience that has had an immediate impact for our clients.  

Katie Wight

As for me, I founded KW Content in 2017 with a vision to help better-for-the-world companies tell their stories and grow their businesses. First, I spent eight years at Burton Snowboards. I began as a french-speaking customer-service representative and then spent two years working directly for Jake Burton Carpenter, before making my move into marketing. Five years later, I was managing the company’s two blogs and three brands on social media (@burtonsnowboards, @burton and @anonoptics). I’ve worked in many other industries and with many other brands since. This whole time, I’ve been building and launching social media and content strategies for consumer brands on repeat. Putting out an online course for social media marketing was unexpected, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of doing so. 

With KW Content, we’d already proven our proprietary methods for building and launching content strategies work to drive brand growth, engagement, and greater customer lifetime values every single time. Now, with Strong Brand Social, we’re tapping into these same proven strategies to help as many people as we possibly can. With this new business unit, we plan to share every single secret, framework, and practice we’ve proven from a career in content and social media.  

In the past few months, we’ve enrolled thousands of businesses into Strong Brand Social Express, a crash course on how to build a tenacious social media marketing machine. We’re watching business owners and marketing professionals implement our strategies and tactics to succeed, while also creating space for students to dialogue and bounce ideas off each other inside our private Facebook group. It’s hardly a stretch for my team to seek, grow, and nurture communities. We’ve done it for clients for years, and it’s in each of our DNAs. To over-deliver is another rule we live by, for what it’s worth. 

The mindset shift from being an exclusive service provider to making our skills and knowledge as accessible as possible has fundamentally changed everything. Forever, I assume. And it feels right. 

In your service,

Katie