Ethics-Embattled PRSA to Lose Another CEO as Financial Crisis Bears Down
Funny thing happened last week – only days after the conclusion of the 2024 International Conference and governance Assembly (#PRSAICON) of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA):
PRSA’s Board Chair abruptly announced CEO Linda Thomas Brooks’ pending exit, set for year-end in a few months, via an e-mail that only some PRSA members received:
At this writing (October 28), PRSA’s major announcement has yet to appear on the organization’s own public-facing website, social media, or in PR trade media – now four days later.
It seems PRSA only sent the e-mail out because leaders felt forced to do so but, otherwise, the very small and insecure cadre of board members are seeking to hide the news from wider public consumption, which is kind of weird for a public relations “professional” association.
Without question, PRSA’s Chair, Joseph Abreu, made no mention of the pending CEO departure to PRSA Assembly delegates who met for the annual governance meeting on October 14, 2024, in Anaheim, California.
In contrast, one Assembly delegate tweeted about Ms. Thomas Brooks’ “inspired” leadership — but no indication that Ms. Thomas Brooks also disclosed to the delegation: “…and by the way, I’m outta here!“
Nondisclosure and purposeful concealment of important facts tied to organizational compliance and financial viability are typical PRSA tactics.
So this most recent example is no different.
For years, PRSA’s organizational leadership has kept members in the dark about what’s really going on with their member dollars and their association. Any members who demand better — and possess the wherewithal to be heard within the industry — are threatened and punished.
In December 2020, for example, I received texted threats from a recent-past PRSA College of Fellows Chair, who said she would “end it” at my “peril” if I did not support then-incoming 2021 PRSA National Board Chair Michelle Olson, even though I knew massive unethical misconduct was taking place in PRSA and had reported it accordingly.
For those in PRSA and the wider PR industry who follow the ongoing saga of PRSA’s many years of financial problems and mafia-like behavior, this latest news of another CEO turnover marks an inflection point, underscoring PRSA’s culture of secrecy and spiral of decline.
For example, Chairman Abreu’s abundantly cautious choice of words in his recent e-mail lends false impressions that this bombshell news is somehow no big deal.
Mr. Abreu painted a portrait of a harmonious, mutual decision between CEO Linda Thomas Brooks and Mr. Abreu’s Board to part ways. But if you actually believe that, then PRSA also has a bridge in Brooklyn they can sell you.
Further, Mr. Abreu seemed to imply that CFO Philip Bonaventura is just an innocent bystander amid this dumpster-fire, graciously stepping in to bridge the gap, toward what’s alluded to as a smooth and uneventful transition.
Note: PRSA’s last CEO search – July 2019-January 2021 – lasted more than 18 months, spanning over three fiscal years and costing members tens of thousands of dollars.
These 18 months included Mr. Bonaventura, who himself sought the permanent CEO job but was denied it in favor of Ms. Thomas Brooks, being allowed to report to himself as Interim CEO while concurrently serving as CFO, during the added chaos of the pandemic’s onset.
Also during this prior timeframe, PRSA registered millions in financial losses of member dollars as well as discrepancies and disinformation given to members about it — all on Mr. Bonaventura’s watch.
When he wasn’t given the job in favor of Ms. Thomas Brooks, PRSA Board officers fretted about the importance of helping Mr. Bonaventura “save face,” as per this e-mail that later turned up in the public domain on government e-mail servers:
After I pressed for answers about unexplained financial losses throughout 2020, which Mr. Bonaventura ignored as dual serving CEO and CFO, it was Mr. Bonaventura himself who oversaw empaneling a four-person “Grievance Panel” in January 2021 to execute an unlawful expulsion of my membership out of the organization on false, baseless, and contrived grounds.
The “Panel” included Mr. Abreu and the then-newly hired CEO, Ms. Thomas Brooks, who, at the time of this e-mail below (procured through a government open-records inquiry in 2024), had only been on the job at PRSA for days.
The significance of this fact is that later, Ms. Thomas Brooks lied about her role in this retaliatory mess.
Only in the past year, Ms. Thomas Brooks gave false information to PRSA members who had inquired about this specific matter.
Instead of telling the truth about her role, she claimed she was “not involved” in the faux “grievance” targeting me, although a slew of written documentation — such as the e-mail above — indisputably proved that she indeed was involved every step of the way.
Sadly for Ms. Thomas Brooks, her false statements to members claiming otherwise were caught on a legally recorded video call:
Neither Mr. Bonaventura nor anyone in PRSA leadership ever faced accountability for this retaliation scheme, which ran afoul of New York law, and now, Mr. Bonaventura is positioning himself yet again to vie for the PRSA CEO slot himself by serving as “Interim CEO.” He concurrently serves as Treasurer of the Global Alliance, a third party PR association of associations, with which PRSA also does business. Can you say, “conflict of interest”?
Meanwhile, in the background, PRSA’s version of Rome is burning.
Neither Mr. Abreu nor Ms. Thomas Brooks nor Mr. Bonaventura – all of whom spent time speaking at the podium during PRSA’s annual Assembly meeting of voting delegates two weeks ago – bothered to breathe word of Ms. Thomas Brooks’ pending departure during #PRSAICON, much less at the governance Assembly.
That’s significant, because only one of these scenarios is likely now possible:
- The Board and Ms. Thomas Brooks all knew full-well that Ms. Thomas Brooks was departing her post at the end of this year (whether by the Board’s preference or hers) but opted to mislead the voting Assembly through nondisclosure of this material fact, OR,
- Ms. Thomas Brooks privately knew she planned to leave but didn’t tell the Board when they met in Anaheim, much less the delegates during her own Assembly comments, OR,
- The Board (or a faction of the Board) knew she would soon be invited to leave but they didn’t tell her until they felt they could claim victory post-ICON with as uneventful an Assembly meeting as possible, OR,
- Something strange, irregular, and alarming happened between the end of the annual Assembly meeting two weeks ago and last week, triggering a pants-on-fire decision in very recent days that Ms. Thomas Brooks’ services and payroll cost would be eliminated.
Given what I know about PRSA’s financial chaos and barrels of red ink, I’ll venture to guess that PRSA flat-out can’t afford to pay Ms. Thomas Brooks any longer.
Is there another scenario worth considering here? If so, then please speak up, folks.
In any case, it seems Assembly delegates – and now, all PRSA members at-large – were sold and are now continuing to be sold a false bill of goods on PRSA’s organizational and financial health, courtesy of Mr. Abreu’s spin.
If all were dandy, then why is Ms. Thomas Brooks giving the heave-ho to her $475,000+ a year job, presuming it’s her choice?
Upon having learned of her falsehoods this calendar year, I sent an e-mail in June 2024 to Ms. Thomas Brooks – with Treasurer Jessica Graham and PRSA College of Fellows Chair Philip Poole copied, as nonvoluntary witnesses – demanding that Ms. Thomas Brooks cease and desist her false and defamatory comments about me and other misleading contrivances to dues-paying members.
I also asked for an investigation.
As usual, I was ignored. Ms. Thomas Brooks never responded, and neither did Mr. Poole nor Ms. Graham.
Ms. Graham then promptly ran from the floor for PRSA National Chair during last week’s October 14th Assembly against the slated candidate, Heide Harrell, even after Ms. Graham and Ms. Harrell both received additional e-mails from me this past September, documenting other instances of PRSA misconduct occurring on their watch in recent years.
Ms. Graham’s bid for National Chair failed dismally per the reported vote count, even despite (or perhaps due to) 2018 PRSA Chair and Syracuse University / Newhouse School employee Tony D’Angelo personally endorsing Ms. Graham’s candidacy at the Assembly. It seems Mr. D’Angelo doesn’t enjoy the clout he used to.
Now, CEO Linda Thomas Brooks is soon to pack her bags and leave PRSA, as we only learned four days ago.
Adding to this chaos, next year, PRSA’s Chair-Elect is going to be Ms. Harrell.
Ms. Harrell is a Rose Law Firm (Little Rock, Arkansas) marketing staff alumnus, for those remembering anything about the Bill Clinton presidency and Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater scandal in the mid-1990s.
Ms. Harrell is now employed with an Arkansas public water utility.
Per decree by Ms. Harrell’s CEO, public utility ratepayer dollars are currently paying and will pay in the future for all of Ms. Harrell’s PRSA travel expenses for the duration of her employment tied to anything PRSA opts not to pay itself (e-mail procured through a government records request):
This above-noted provides a comfortable little set-up for Ms. Harrell to run up untold expense flying around the United States to visit floundering PRSA chapters and give keynote addresses about nothing germane to PRSA’s actual organizational health… all at Central Arkansas Water ratepayer expense. No guardrails were placed on Mr. Bohannon’s blank-check apparently assured to cover Ms. Harrell’s PRSA expenses.
Not a good look for a middle-America utility that’s DOUBLING rates charged to and paid by Arkansas citizens who are financially struggling in this economy:
But what does Ms. Harrell care? Or PRSA?
As evidenced in the below video clip, Ms. Harrell made her aversion to understanding finances and general math principles well-known, in this public-facing webinar in which Ms. Harrell spoke to PRSSA students in early spring 2021.
In this series of clips — some video and some audio-only, all taken during the public ZOOM webinar — Ms. Harrell:
- Speaks of herself as having “not a clue” about organizational financial matters like tax issues
- Describes her (now former) employers at the Rose Law Firm as having had “not a clue” about what PRSA even was when she joined the board, apparently with the law firm’s support
- Claims she advised her Rose Law Firm employer there would be “No worries” from her PRSA Board affiliation because her involvement would help the firm get “free press”
- Asserts that when she took the standard graduate school entrance exam — the GRE — she didn’t pass a single section of the test
- Describes that she thought she was going to “vomit” from meeting Hillary Clinton over a ZOOM call while making a Rose Law Firm 100th anniversary video.
This individual will soon represent the acumen of the public relations industry to all of America.
At the time of her impolitic yet revealing comments, Ms. Harrell served on the PRSA Board actively kicking me out of membership for my “behavior” of making too many reports internally about PRSA’s own misconduct and asking too many inconvenient financial questions, like, “Where is our members’ money?”
I soon reported PRSA’s misconduct to the Office of the New York Attorney General, in complaints that remain under review (Page 1 of the 15-page document, below):
Now, PRSA’s future is in Ms. Harrell’s hands. Maybe Ms. Thomas Brooks’ real reasons for leaving couldn’t be more clear.
In July 2024, PRSA National Board Meeting minutes that were passed along to me documented these revelations about PRSA National’s more recent mid-year financial outlook.
It seems that if nothing else, Treasurer Jessica Graham spoke truth to power in her comments about the need to change PRSA’s business model. That brand of thinking, however, got Ms. Graham voted out of chairmanship contention, in favor of Ms. “Not a Clue.”
I don’t gather that these financially inconvenient details as noted above were shared with PRSA Assembly delegates last week, either.
Anyone is free to offer up documentation to the contrary, if information that counters my concerns was shared.
The PR industry deserves better that what PRSA has dished out via its mismanagement for many years now, but, thanks to Mr. Abreu, Mr. Bonaventura, Ms. Harrell, and company, all evidence makes clear that we won’t be seeing improvement anytime soon.
Mary Beth West, APR, FPRCA, has 30 years of experience in the PR industry and is a past National Board member of PRSA. In summer 2024, she was recognized by the National Whistleblower Center in Washington, D.C., for her work as a whistleblower of PRSA misconduct and financial issues.