Gayle Conran is the President of ConranPR, a boutique Manhattan-based public relations agency that specializes in travel. Founded in 1999, ConranPR is by design a small agency with an intentionally curated client list that allows senior-level professionals to work directly on the business. News is presented and pitched to the media with an experienced voice, in the proper context, framed in messaging that resonates with top, influential editors.
Named one of the HSMAI Top 25: Extraordinary Minds in Sales, Marketing in 2015, Gayle is a Chicago native and graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with a B.A. in English Literature and a proficiency in French. She has completed post graduate coursework at Columbia University in social media and digital journalism and received a Digital & Social Media Certificate from Fordham University in 2017. She is a longtime member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).
Before opening ConranPR in 1999, Gayle was a Managing Director in the Travel Division of Hill & Knowlton Public Relations in New York City, a global agency that is part of the WPP Group. During her tenure at Hill & Knowlton, she directed strategic programs for some of the industry’s top destination, hospitality, and aviation accounts. In 1998, Gayle was a member of the crisis communication team that handled Swissair flight #111 disaster.
Gayle began her professional life in her teens, when she graduated from a performing arts high school and spent over a decade as a contracted, professional ballerina. From 1981 to 1989, she was a member of The Boston Ballet, during which time she toured the U.S., Mexico and Europe with Rudolf Nureyev in his productions of Swan Lake, Giselle and Don Quixote. While still dancing full time, she began paving the way for her career transition, working with Boston Ballet’s public relations director. She also penned numerous by-lined articles on the arts for The Boston Globe and Playbill. Before leaving the company, she wrote Boston Ballet’s history for their 25th Anniversary commemorative book. While earning her B.A. at Brown University, she worked for Swissair at Boston’s Logan Airport and DC’s Dulles International airports and with the airline’s public relations department.