Joan Bryna Michelson

Joan Bryna Michelson, MBA is Creator, Executive Producer and Host of Green Connections Radio™ and an award-winning, creative business and communications leader, public speaker and journalist. She has generated millions in revenue and branding for top companies, government agencies and non-profits, and worked with top media organizations.

A specialist in the “green” space and a lifelong advocate for women in leadership, Michelson’s work has included Chrysler’s Global Electric Motorcars, the U.S. Department of Energy-Clean Energy Alliance Small Business Partnership, Earth Day Network, the top “green” private equity firm Global Environment Fund, and the National Council for Science and the Environment.

Pioneering, launching or reinvigorating businesses and organizations with both short-term and long-term success has become a hallmark of Michelson’s career. She drove “best year ever” growth at the 12-year old electric car division of Chrysler, Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) through creative, strategic and integrated media relations, branding, events, advertising and print and online marketing initiatives, including to women and young female drivers who embrace “green” driving. These earned positive Page One coverage in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and top coverage in Time magazine, Consumer Reports, and The LA Times, on CNN Money, CBS, and “The Today Show.” She also wrote articles on electric vehicles for the global business/policy magazine, The New Economy.

Michelson helped generate millions in revenue for management consulting firms, such as American Express and Deloitte, where she reinvented their business development approaches, developed seminar programs, served as Managing Editor of multiple publications, and conducted campaigns, including “Women of Wealth.”

As a reporter, Michelson has worked with the best: CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” ABC News’ “20/20″ and “PrimeTime Live,” “The Crusaders” and specials on NBC, as well as print, online and local media. She has written numerous articles including in The New Economy, a recurring column on leadership and gender issues for a regional business journal, for The Washington Post, and Life & Style magazine. She also penned an excerpt on women in government leadership for the non-fiction book If Women Ruled the World, published by Inner Ocean Publishing in 2005 and has a blog on The Huffington Post.

An adept public speaker, Michelson has conducted leadership training at such esteemed institutions as the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Naval Academy, as well as at academic, professional and corporate functions nationwide, such as the Executive Women in Government (EWG), Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), Zonta International, the NCSE, National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), and the Small Business Administration, as well as for chambers and universities.

Michelson and her firms earned industry awards for their work from the Broadcasters Association (2007), the International Association of Business Communicators (2004), the American Marketing Association (2003), and the Public Relations Society of America (2003). One of the stories she helped produce at “60 Minutes,” on the hazards of monosodium glutamate, was nominated for an EMMY and was rated one of the top most-requested transcripts/videos.

She has been an Adjunct Professor in the Communications and Journalism Department of Columbia Union College in Maryland, and actively involved in the community, focused on promoting the advancement of women, the press, and growing the green economy.

A Bachelor of Arts in English from UCLA (after two years at George Washington University), a Master of Business Administration from Bernard M. Baruch College, City University of New York in the executive program, and various post-graduate studies – including in leadership at Harvard University and The Aspen Institute – round out Michelson’s portrait so far.

As an aside, Michelson is a descendant of three prominent siblings: Albert A. Michelson was the first American scientist to win the Nobel Prize (physics, 1907), Charles Michelson was the first White House Communications Director/Press Secretary (under FDR); and Miriam Michelson literally kept the women’s suffrage movement on the front page as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphia Inquirer.