Valerie Reynolds is an integrated marketing and communications professional who works with mission-driven organizations to generate media coverage and spearhead communications strategy that builds brands and improves public images. Valerie currently serves as the Communications Director for Ci3, an award-winning research center at the University of Chicago that addresses the social and structural determinants of adolescent sexual and reproductive health. She is also the co-founder of Hurston Media Group, a marketing services and publishing agency dedicated to the creation, publicity, and awareness of media that reflect the Black experience.

Valerie’s work takes place at the nexus of social equity, communications, and entrepreneurship, and after spending nearly two decades working in PR, she knows that media is and always has been a dominant tool used to shape the opinions of the masses and amplify the voices of marginalized communities. Valerie has landed coverage in media outlets around the world, including NBC Nightly News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Slate, Huffington Post, Five Thirty-Eight, and Hindustan Times. Her own writings have been featured in Indigo, the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Observer, and Oyez Review, the literary magazine of Roosevelt University. In addition to her extensive PR and marketing experience, Valerie is also the author and publisher of “The Joys of Being a Little Black Boy,” a vividly-illustrated, history-based children’s book that tells the story of great Black men who were once just little, joyful Black boys.

Valerie is a native of Dayton, Ohio and holds an MBA in marketing from American InterContinental University, a master’s degree in journalism from Roosevelt University in Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from The Ohio State University.