Kimberly Spell
Founder & CEO
Founder and CEO Kimberly Spell is a crisis and reputation management specialist. She possesses a wide-ranging understanding of domestic and foreign policy issues, has strong relationships with journalists across the country, and is a pivotal member of New York City’s marketing and communications industry.
Kimberly’s career has spanned more than twenty-five years of high-profile communications roles ranging from on-the-record spokesperson for Vice President Al Gore and two other US presidential candidates to the chief communications officer of NYC & Company, New York City’s official marketing, tourism, and partnership agency.
At NYC & Company, Kimberly served ten years with the Bloomberg administration as the global architect of the public affairs and press strategy for New York City’s tourism industry. Between publicizing iconic locations and big events, creating communications-driven programs, and leading a team of thirty-five employees across the globe with a unified plan to promote the city of New York, Kimberly’s tenure at NYC & Company resulted in historic highs in tourism and visitation numbers for all five boroughs. Kimberly also held the title of executive vice president of communications at the Partnership for New York City, New York’s business nonprofit.
Before she moved to New York, Kimberly spent ten years at the highest levels of American government and politics, including working on Capitol Hill as press secretary for Representative David Price and as communications director for John Edwards during his successful race for the US Senate. In addition, Kimberly worked on three presidential campaigns: as deputy communications director for Vice President Al Gore’s bid, as New Hampshire press secretary for Senator John Kerry, and as national advisor for communications and spokesperson for General Wesley Clark for President.
After residing in Manhattan for fifteen years, Kimberly and her husband now live in Westchester County, New York, with their daughter.
Carli Brinkman
Executive Vice President, Marketing & Communications
Carli Brinkman’s sixteen plus years in strategic communications have provided her the opportunity to generate impactful public relations programs for a range of organizations in both the public and private sectors. She worked as press officer for the City of New York Department of Parks and Recreation, as associate director for public relations for NYC & Company— the city’s official tourism and major events marketing arm, and as director of public relations and communications for Discover the Palm Beaches, Palm Beach County’s official tourism marketing agency.
Through these positions, Carli had the honor of leading the public relations (PR) efforts on such high-profile projects as the redevelopment of Washington Square Park; Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates for Central Park; the development of the High Line greenway and rail trail; the new Yankee Stadium, which was relocated to city park land; the Brooklyn Bridge’s 125th Anniversary; and the 400th Anniversary of the Founding of the City of New York, to name just a few.
Carli also managed client teams for a number of top PR agencies in New York and Palm Beach before venturing out independently with her own consultancy, Carli Brinkman Public Relations, which she’d grown into one of the most reputable independent practices in all of South Florida before joining the One World Associates team.
Over the years, Carli has represented clients in a variety of industry and nonprofit sectors, including tourism and hospitality, technology and enterprise software, climate change and science literacy, and community redevelopment and hunger insecurity, among many others. Carli received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Florida, where she majored in public relations. To this day, she remains a Gator girl through and through.
Carli lives with her two daughters and husband on the Upper West Side in Manhattan.
Sophie Roberts
Executive Vice President, Content & Brand Strategy
Sophie Roberts has almost fifteen years of experience as a writer in New York City. A born-and-bred Brooklynite, Sophie worked as the lead copywriter for ten years at NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism, and partnership agency for New York City. During her tenure there, she was integral to the agency’s award-winning rebrands and wrote copy across all mediums for fully integrated marketing platforms to encourage global tourism to the city’s five boroughs. In addition to naming major initiatives for New York City and creating taglines for myriad campaigns like NYC Restaurant Week and GreeNYC, Sophie also acted as a strategist and lead writer for partnerships with major brands and organizations, including American Express, American Airlines, JetBlue, the NAACP, Nickelodeon, and OpenTable.
Most recently, Sophie worked on the creative content for visitor destinations in California, Colorado, and Maryland and on the Brooklyn Public Library’s campaign to showcase the institution’s investment in equity and its commitment to a diverse constituency, as well as on the forthcoming strategic rebrand of the Federal Hall National Memorial in Manhattan.
Prior to her position at NYC & Company, Sophie spent two years in the publicity department of Random House working with some of the publishing house’s most high-profile authors, including Anna Quindlen, John Irving, and Maya Angelou.
Sophie lives in Brooklyn with her husband, seven-year-old twin daughters, and a beloved 105-pound rescue dog from Alabama. She is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.