Jennifer Thompson, president/CEO of Thompson & Co., wins UAA alumni award
April 28, 2016
Jennifer Thompson will be honored with the University of Alaska Anchorage Journalism and Public Communications Alumni Award on Friday.
Thompson is the principal partner and president/CEO of Thompson & Co. Public Relations, which has offices in Anchorage, New York City and Houston. She is often involved at the planning level of new projects and manages several of the agency’s clients herself. She personally handles the firm’s most high-level projects, including coordination for national media such as Bravo’s “Top Chef,” NBC’s “Today,” and “Cooking with Paula Deen.” Thompson is an active mentor of young professionals and employs several UAA journalism and public communications graduates.
Thompson graduated from UAA in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public communications. She began her career as a public relations intern at Bernholz & Graham in 1999, and went from intern to president in just seven years. Three years later, Thompson purchased the agency, and rebranded it to reflect the change of ownership.
In 2015 PR News magazine named Thompson one of the nation’s top women in public relations. Earlier this year, she was inducted into the Anchorage Athena Society. She is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers, and she sits on the boards of UAA’s Celebrity Chef Invitational and the Public Relations Society of America’s Counselors Academy.
UAA’s Journalism and Public Communications Alumni Award was established in 2012 to recognize individuals who have excelled in their profession and are active in their communities. Past honorees include Natalie Lowman, communications director of ConocoPhillips Alaska, and David Jensen, owner of David Jensen Photography. UAA’s Department of Journalism and Communication offers a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and public communications, a minor in communication, and general education requirement courses in human communication.