Kerry McClenahan

CEO & President – McClenahan Bruer Communications

Kerry is CEO and president of McClenahan Bruer Communications (McBru), which she co-founded in 1993. Kerry’s career spans more than 20 years dedicated to the practice of advertising and public relations for technology business-to-business companies.

At McBru, Kerry’s primary roles include agency visionary and staff mentor, strategic counsel and practices architect, and strategic client counsel. Areas of practice expertise for Kerry include branding, positioning and messaging, strategic program development, advertising, media relations and writing.

Kerry has worked with a diverse set of clients spanning technology sectors that include semiconductors, semiconductor intellectual property, electronic design automation, advanced computing, software development and enterprise IT. Clients served include HP, Thetus, AMI Semiconductor, SMSC, Virage Logic, Aprio, Analogy, Synplicity, SCS, Cogent Systems, ON Semiconductor, Quantitative Technology Corp., McDATA, uXcomm, InFocus Systems, Intel, Merix, and many more. In 1998, after fruitlessly searching for psychographic data on engineers with which to enhance client communications programs, Kerry conceived of what has now become an ongoing research study. The study is conducted every other year, most recently in the form of Insight 2007: A Survey of Chinese Technology Innovators, and is hailed as the first and only psychographic research available in the deep technology sector.

An agency creature her entire career, Kerry’s experience prior to co-founding McBru included a six-year stint in management in the PR department of Karakas, VanSickle, Ouellette (now the Portland office of Fleishman-Hillard) and two years with Regis McKenna and Jack Ramsey at Jack Ramsey Associates where she began her career as an advertising copywriter. Kerry serves on the board of Community of Writers, Inc. a not-for-profit organization aimed at improving the quality of writing instruction in public schools in Oregon. Recently published in the book Inside the Minds: Public Relations as a Branding Tool, she is also a member of the executive committee for the PRSA’s Tech Section and serves on the MS&L affiliate network advisory board.

Kerry holds a bachelor of science degree in organizational and mass communications from Eastern Washington University.