Adding to its diverse team of education, branding, and marketing experts, Rhodes Branding is excited to announce that Molly McGowan Gorsuch, APR, is joining the agency as the Director of Client Engagement.
McGowan Gorsuch will be a liaison between client schools and Rhodes’ creative and marketing teams, connecting the K-12 community with services designed to align with their unique priorities. She will also support the onboarding of new clients, business development strategy, awareness, and marketing communications efforts for Rhodes Branding’s growth initiatives.
McGowan Gorsuch’s professional experience and expertise in School PR will provide unique insight into the challenges faced by K-12 clients, and ensure the agency’s strategic approaches and deliverables fully prepare schools and districts for branding, marketing, and communication success.
“Molly’s energy and values are what we’re most excited to have on the team,” said Rhodes Branding’s president and co-founder, Austin Rhodes. “She is being charged to fully support the education community by working with them to get their wildest dreams accomplished. Her deep-rooted passion for education will have a positive impact on our partners across the country.”
For the last eight years, McGowan Gorsuch has served as Public Information Officer for Henderson County Public Schools (HCPS), a 23-school district in Western North Carolina. Since joining HCPS in 2014, McGowan Gorsuch restructured the Public Information Office into a department that plans, develops, and implements internal and external strategic communication activities; coordinates media, community, and public relations; serves as the district all-media contact for routine and crisis communication; and leads district branding, design, publications, marketing, and social media management.
In her time at HCPS, McGowan Gorsuch brought brand awareness to the district, designed a framework for enhanced district- and school-to-family communications, expanded advertising and marketing campaigns for district initiatives including targeted staff recruitment, established new internal employee communications, developed and trained an HCPS Social Media Team to manage school-based social media accounts, and expanded the district’s overall social media presence and engagement.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, McGowan Gorsuch was a thought leader in the NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) District Communication Leaders Group and chaired the HCPS Communications Task Group – part of the district’s Re-Entry Task Force organized in response to state guidelines for reopening public schools. Since then, she’s reformatted this workgroup of educators, and campus- and district-level staff to serve as an ongoing advisory committee to the HCPS Public Information Office.
“The last 8 years serving alongside the dedicated educators and servant leaders of HCPS instilled in me a passion for K-12 education, and a desire to advocate for those tasked with communicating with their district’s communities,” said McGowan Gorsuch. “I’m so excited to join the Rhodes Branding team and connect schools with creative strategies to address the unique challenges they face.”
McGowan Gorsuch is an active member of both the National School Public Relations Association and the North Carolina School Public Relations Association (NCSPRA). A former NCSPRA board member, she currently serves as the NCSPRA State Coordinator and is instrumental in organizing professional development programming. McGowan Gorsuch is also a charter member of the Public Relations Society of America’s Western North Carolina Chapter. Locally, McGowan Gorsuch is thrilled to continue serving on the board of the Henderson County Education Foundation, to directly support K-12 students and educators in her home of Hendersonville.
McGowan Gorsuch has her Accreditation in Public Relations through the Universal Accreditation Board, and holds a Master of Science in Communications and graduate certificate in Strategic Communication Management from Purdue University (2017), and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and English from Elon University (2010).
