Michelle Van Jura, Founder and CEO

Michelle Van Jura is a seasoned professional with various aspects of marketing and public relations experience. Michelle’s career experience and focus has ranged from business-to-business hardware, software and Internet clients to consumer-focused products. She has handled a full-range of corporate communications efforts, crisis management, media relations and analyst relations. She recently founded Intersect Communications, believing that although the media landscape and communication channels are changing the core skills that are the foundation of PR/marketing communications are still relevant and need to be upheld.

Michelle’s background includes marketing, public relations and interactive experience in both agency and corporate environments. She has worked with industry leaders and start ups alike, including Atari, CDW, Daewoo, Earthlink, Findology, IBM, INFUSIO, Kodak, Pantech Wireless, PostX (acquired by IronPort Systems, later acquired by Cisco), Mediabolic (acquired by Macrovision), Motion Theory, Planar Systems, SONICblue (maker of ReplayTV, Rio MP3 Players and Dual Deck VCRs), Schematic, Sunkist, Turbine and others.

Prior to founding Intersect Communications, Michelle was a vice president within Ketchum’s prestigious brand practice team and worked as a consultant for the company’s growing technology practice. Before moving to the East Coast Michelle was the general manager of Fusion Public Relations West Coast operations, a medium-sized full service communications firm specializing in the technology sector. Michelle was tasked to build Fusion’s West Coast office from the ground up and managed all new business, client counseling, staffing, training and development, operations and strategic counsel.

Early on in her career Michelle was immersed in account management and execution at The Bohle Company, an independent high-technology public relations agency in Los Angeles. As well as holding an in-house position as the director of corporate communications for Inteliant (a wholly owned subsidiary of SOS Staffing Services), an information technology consulting, staffing, systems integration and outsourcing firm.

She is an award-winning PR practitioner and can be seen as a featured orator on a public speaking CD-ROM that is used at more than 10,000 universities across the U.S., to improve students’ public speaking abilities.