Kate Noel is principal at Foreside Strategies, a strategic communications firm outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She advises small to medium sized businesses and non-profit clients on their media outreach, board management and long-term internal and external communications needs. Prior to founding Foreside in 2014, Ms. Noel served as Director of External Affairs for a private independent school in the Philadelphia suburbs and was tasked with realigning all external business functions following a merger.
Ms. Noel moved from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia in 2005 to join Comcast Corporation at their headquarters, where she supported their executive suite in communications needs. In addition to c-suite speech writing and strategic communications work, during her seven-year tenure at Comcast, she served as communications lead for the Comcast Interactive Media unit, and also helped erect the Comcast Digital Communications efforts – including the first Comcast Blog throughout the NBC Universal acquisition.
Ms. Noel began her career in 2001 at the White House, serving in the West Wing Office of the Counselor to the President, where she participated in all aspects of the daily operation of the office, including media interviews. She then moved to Austin, Texas in 2003 where she aided former Counselor to the President Karen Hughes on the outline and research for her memoir Ten Minutes from Normal. Ms. Noel also served on the advance team and in the media war room for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign in 2003 and 2004.
In 2016 she embarked on a passion project with her sister, co-founding a graphic t-shirt company called Lingowares. She is a 2001 graduated of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Ms. Noel lives in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania with her husband Jon and their four young children.
Sneak Peek Into What You’ll Learn…
01:23 – Kate tells us about the two businesses she leads, Foreside Strategies, and her passion project, Lingowares.
03:57 – Kate tells us about working in the West Wing of the White House.
08:51 – We learn how Kate made a pivot from working in politics to corporate communications at Comcast.
13:43 – Kate tells us about her decision to leave her corporate role at Comcast in order to focus on a more manageable career path while raising four children.
17:00 – Kate shares her experience going back to work after maternity leave after the birth of her first of four children.
20:42 – Kate tells us the advice she would give to someone considering leaving their corporate job.
24:57 – Kate explains how she found peace in decelerating her career in order to focus more energy on raising her four kids.
27:00 – Kate shares how grieving the loss of a very good friend and the loss of her mother-in-law affected how she and her husband viewed their lives.
31:55 – Kate discusses how she juggles two companies and four kids and the importance of time management when not working in a structured environment.
35:41 – Kate provides concrete advice for anyone thinking about leaving a traditional job in order to create a new path.
42:30 – Brass Tacks— The lightning round of concrete advice and tips.
Quotable quotes:
- “It used to be a 24-hour response time…now it is a 2 hour or 45 minutes or faster response time…which really took the communications world by storm.”
- “[When you step out of corporate, recognize]… that it’s not going to be equal, but it’s going to be equally rewarding in another fashion.”
- “We may not be incredibly rich, man are we wealthy here with four healthy kids, a great marriage…the financial piece and the title that I was leaving on the table all of a sudden didn’t seem to matter as much.”
- “I think that we all wonder about the path not taken…”
- “You can have it all, but not at the same time. Once you embrace that notion and you adapt with some patience, you relax.”
- “Take more in stride. I think that is something I have learned in 10 years of marriage and four kids…just relaxing and taking it in stride.”
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