About Us

Biographies

Cynthia Kasabian, Managing Director

Cynthia Kasabian, Managing Director of CKB Consultants, Inc. has more than 25 years of communications experience. With an extensive background in corporate communications and as an award-winning financial journalist, Ms. Kasabian brings unique expertise to coaching executives on message development and delivery. She also provides strategic public relations counsel.

Prior to founding CKB Consultants, Ms. Kasabian was Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, at Bank of America. She worked directly with Bank of America CEOs and their management teams on presentation delivery, speechwriting, and media training. In addition, she has broad experience in all aspects of communications and public relations.

During her 15-year career with Bank of America, Ms. Kasabian held a variety of senior management communications positions. Her responsibilities included strategic communications, crisis communications planning, acquisition communications, media relations, executive speechwriting, internal communications and new media.

Before joining Bank of America, Ms. Kasabian was a financial reporter. She wrote for The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, BusinessWeek and the San Francisco Examiner. Also, she was editor of the San Francisco Business Journal.

Ms. Kasabian was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business and graduated summa cum laude from San Francisco State University with a BA in journalism. She is the recipient of several national journalism awards and was a contributing writer to the book: A Guide to Financial Reporting, published by Columbia University Press. She has been a Conference Board speaker on the subject of corporate communications and served as a director on the board of Goodwill Industries.

Greg Berardi

Greg Berardi has more than 20 years of communications and media experience. Mr. Berardi has managed public relations, investor relations and marketing programs for Fortune 1000 firms, as well as early stage companies. Mr. Berardi worked for Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, InsWeb, GCI Group, and Tradiant (now GT Nexus). At Bank of America, Mr. Berardi worked in the Corporate Communications group in support of the Chairman’s Office. He also did extensive work with the bank’s credit, real estate, investment management, mutual fund and retail brokerage divisions. Also at BofA, Mr. Berardi served as a business development officer in the Private Banking Group, helping high-net-worth individuals secure trust, investment management and credit services. At Fidelity Investments, Mr. Berardi was in charge of retail public relations programs in the western United States. At GCI Group, he helped manage Sun Microsystems and the firm’s other major technology clients. At InsWeb, a leading insurance marketplace, Mr. Berardi was Vice President of Public and Investor Relations, where he worked on the company’s initial public offering. At Tradiant, he was Director of Corporate Marketing, with responsibility for advertising, public and investor relations, collateral, the corporate website and trade show programs. Earlier in his career, Mr. Berardi was a newspaper reporter for 12 years at several Northern California papers. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in government and journalism from California State University, Sacramento.

Curtiss Olsen

Curt Olsen has more than 20 years of communications experience. He has provided corporate, association and individual clients with public and media relations programs to enhance their reputations, disseminate key messages to target audiences and handle crisis communications. During his career, Mr. Olsen has developed particular expertise in creating internal and external communications programs tailored to strategic objectives and corporate or organizational culture. Most recently, he was director of communications for the California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA), a 28,000-member association of the accounting profession in California and one of the largest accounting societies in the nation. At CalCPA, Mr. Olsen was the primary communications strategist and spokesman for the accounting profession in California and created media training, education and outreach programs that earned his organization and its members regional and national press coverage. Mr. Olsen was also the communications lead on a legislative and communications team at CalCPA that successfully curtailed needless accounting reform legislation in Sacramento in 2002. He also counseled CalCPA leaders on how to respond to difficult questions regarding the accounting scandals that rocked the profession in 2001 and 2002. Mr. Olsen currently works with a variety of clients in banking, accounting, telecommunications and the legal profession. He has earned numerous awards for his public relations programs, internal communications work and for writing and editing. Mr. Olsen is a graduate of Pepperdine University with a BA in Communications.

Jaye Scholl

Jaye Scholl has more than 25 years experience in communications with particular expertise in financial services communications. She works with clients on a variety of communications challenges. She was the west coast editor of Barron's Business and Financial Weekly for 20 years. More recently she was the publications editor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, producing quarterly magazines and newsletters. An award-winning journalist, she has extensive experience in magazine and newsletter editing, speechwriting and creating editorial content for websites. She holds a B.A. in history from Skidmore College and is a Knight-Bagehot Fellow from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.

Susan Nagy

Susan Nagy has more than 10 years experience as a public relations and marketing professional. Her media relations experience includes execution of comprehensive public and investor relations and marketing plans for financial services pioneers such as The Brodia Group and InsWeb. She also has particular expertise in speaker placement and conference management. She has coordinated the annual CFO Conference for San Francisco-based Pacific Coast Bankers' Bank and doubled attendance at the conference year over year in multiple locations. Conference planning included execution of marketing collateral, vendor relations, booth coordination, technical needs, speaker and attendee solicitation, and all public relations and attendee correspondence. She has also coordinated off-site corporate meetings and arranged spousal activities. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from San Francisco State University.