Matt’s a communications & marketing leader with proven results developing & executing successful strategies & campaigns.
Matt has successfully developed integrated marketing and communications strategies for for-profit and non-profit companies and organizations. His marketing plans and leadership have generated positive results for the companies and clients he’s served.
Matt’s skills include writing, editing, public speaking, multitasking, problem-solving, and team building. He has extensive experience with Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft 365/Office, Hubspot, Constant Contact, Pardot, Wordpress, Drupal, Flourish, and Google Analytics.
Expertise
Marketing & Comms Strategy
Matt has executed high-profile marketing and communications campaigns for non-profit and for-profit organizations—including start-ups and legacy companies.
Public & Media Relations
While serving as a non-profit communications director, Matt generated more than 600 million media impressions in a top-40 market on a $3,000 yearly advertising budget. He has served as the primary point-of-contact for media and public relations at four companies.
Content Strategy
Matt has built successful digital and print content marketing operations at multiple organizations. He’s executed campaigns hyper-targeted to niche audiences, as well as campaigns targeting the most influential leaders in the free world.
Analytics & KPIs
Matt has a track record of successful data-driven and goal oriented management. Most recently in 2024, Matt and his team implemented a content strategy that delivered 58 percent growth in web pageviews within two years.
Branding
Matt has served as a brand manager for some of the most venerated non-profit brands in the world. He has also spearheaded major rebrand and web development projects for multiple organizations.
Team Building & Leadership
Matt has built effective communications and marketing teams at multiple organizations over the past decade. At Saxony Partners, he quickly established a fully functional, in-house marketing and communications department, transforming the marketing operation from cost center to revenue generator in less than two years.
Success Stories & Portfolio
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Matt has built diverse, creative, and effective marketing and communications teams from scratch at Saxony Partners, Pereview Software, and Freedom House. At each stop, Matt sourced and hired talented specialists tasked with implementing new brand guidelines, creating engaging digital content, growing the organization’s social and web visibility, and expanding existing and new audiences.
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At Saxony Partners and Pereview Software, Matt developed a strategic marketing plan that leveraged digital content to drive new leads to the sales team. This content, which explored the services and value offered by the companies, was deployed via web, social media, and targeted email marketing campaigns. The result: more than $1 million in new client business, transforming the marketing operation from a cost center to a revenue generator within two years.
At Freedom House, Matt executed a new content strategy that delivered insights and analysis on geopolitical issues impacting freedom and human rights worldwide, as well as explaining what the organization was doing to protect those rights and freedoms. Under Matt’s tenure, this content strategy incorporated Freedom House’s refreshed website, its invigorated social networks, and a new weekly newsletter.
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Matt graduated with honors from the journalism school at the University of Alabama and worked as a print journalist for several years. He was a staff columnist for two former Birmingham, Ala., newspapers—Birmingham Weekly and Weld For Birmingham—and has been published by several other newspapers and magazines.
At Freedom House, Matt is a frequent contributor to the organization’s Perspectives blog. You can read his most recent work at his author page.
Additionally, Matt appeared regularly on live TV while working as a columnist at Birmingham Weekly and later as the Director of Communications for the American Heart Association’s Alabama offices.
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While at the American Heart Association, Matt served as a brand manager for one of the world’s most venerable and trusted organizations. This included working internally and externally to ensure that brand guidelines around logo usage, colors, taglines, photography, and other assets were followed explicitly.
At Saxony Partners and Pereview Software, Matt’s first priority as the Vice President of Marketing and Communications was to establish and codify brand identities and guidelines for those two nascent organizations. This led to a full rebranding effort for Saxony Partners (including a new logo and color palette) and new websites for both Saxony and Pereview.
Finally, Matt played a leading role in an organizational brand refresh at Freedom House. This effort resulted in new organizational priorities, an expanded color palette, a new brand guide, new boilerplate and tagline, and new internal and external educational assets.
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Matt has been managing organizational websites since 2004.
He has led successful website refreshes and rebuilds at four organizations and has served as a consultant for major web projects at every career stop thus far.
Matt is experienced with sites built on both Drupal and Wordpress platforms, and has managed key vendor relationships with some of the most respected web firms in the United States.
He has extensive experience merging content marketing and web strategy, and has a track record of sparking significant traffic growth.
Likewise, Matt has managed social media accounts and social marketing strategy for the American Heart Association, Saxony Partners, Pereview Software, Cyber Defense Labs, and Freedom House.
Under his watch, his organizations have reliably experienced significant growth in impressions and engagement across all major social platforms. He and his teams have a track record of developing innovative and effective social strategies incorporating voices and tactics that are both brand-compliant and hyper-targeted to specific platforms and audiences.
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The numbers don’t lie:
Pereview Software: A new and more responsive website led to nearly 100 percent growth in web traffic in year one.
Saxony Partners: Matt’s content strategy and web refresh project delivered 30 percent growth in web traffic year-over-year.
Freedom House: Matt’s team delivered a 58 percent increase in web traffic within two years—crossing the 20 million pageview threshold for the first time. The organization saw significant growth on LinkedIn (75 percent in three years) and established itself on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky.
American Heart Association: Matt accumulated more than 600 million media impressions in his two and a half years as Director of Communications for the Birmingham, Ala., office. Prior to his arrival, the Birmingham office had not eclipsed more than 250 million impressions within the same time period.
Recognitions
Recognitions
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In his first year at the American Heart Association, Matt was named the “Rookie of the Year” in the Greater Southeast Affiliate.
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In 2012, Matt took home the top communications award in the American Heart Association’s Greater Southeast Affiliate. During that year, he more than doubled the number of media impressions earned over the previous year within a top-40 broadcast media region.
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In 2013, Matt won the American Heart Association’s “Fundraising Collaboration Award” for co-creating the organization’s first Red Couch marketing campaign for women’s heart disease awareness.
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For more than 45 years, the Bronze Anvil Awards have recognized the best in public relations tactics. Matt and his team at the American Heart Association won their Bronze Anvil Award of Commendation for their internal communications newsletter campaign.
Education
Matt graduated magna cum laude from the University of Alabama in 2005 with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science. He also holds certificates in corporate communications and strategic storytelling from Cornell University.