Kane Communications Group
Kimberly Kane, chief executive officer
Milwaukee
Kanecommgroup.com
When Kane Communications Group president and CEO Kimberly Kane started the company in 2013, she did it in part to bring some flexibility to her life. She had left her career in broadcast journalism a few years earlier, but her subsequent jobs in the corporate world didn’t allow her to leave the long hours behind.
Kane quickly found herself working with large clients in a public relations and marketing world where there is never just one strategy. Projects became bigger than what just one person could handle and she began using contractors and part-time employees.
Before long, Kane hired employees full-time because there was enough work and she needed the full commitment of those she was working with.
“My revenue had doubled each year because of the new approach I was taking with communications — helping companies and their leaders solve problems instead of chase headlines,” Kane said.
She said a company may think it needs an external communications effort when in reality Kane’s questions help reveal the focus should be on internal communications because of poor employee morale or a lack of a strategic plan.
The company’s approach has allowed it to grow to nearly 20 employees and new offices in the Two-Fifty building in downtown Milwaukee plus employees in New York and Geneva, Switzerland.
Kane says the future of the company will be created by the vision of its employees.
“I’m constantly getting a sense of where they see the opportunities are, evaluating those opportunities based on our strengths and based on our abilities and then seeing how we can operationalize those,” she said.
