By JOHN KEREZY, eyeoncleveland.com founder

Part One of Two Parts

COLUMBUS (March 12) – By any measure, Kevin Saghy is a rising star in the fields of public relations and communications. In a career that includes transformational successes with Ketchum Public Relations, the Chicago Cubs and The Ohio State University, followed by a most recent stint at the Cleveland Cavaliers, his trajectory kept pointing in one direction – upward.

But with each transition up the corporate ladder, he became equally motivated to answer a calling from a more personal direction, namely his wife Stephanie and their children Emma and Aiden. By the end of 2023, it was time for a serious reassessment.

“I went through those seasons of my life working 50-to-70-hour work weeks. So did Stephanie. We are so ambitious, and both Stephanie and I established big goals for ourselves,” Saghy explains. “But we also realized that we have this short window to be there for our children, and we take the responsibility of being parents to heart.”

Stephanie aggressively pursued a career in the financial services sector. Today she is a financial advisor and vice president of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in Columbus. Her practice has grown to be increasingly successful, “and there’s no way I will look at her and ask to inhibit her progress for mine,” says Saghy. The couple has embraced each other’s career aspirations by any means necessary, and this would eventually include a supportive push for Kevin to take a leap of faith in a new direction.

“I had considered consulting from time to time in my past, and Stephanie has always encouraged me to go that route,” Saghy adds. “At this time in all our lives, launching my own company looked like the best move for us professionally and personally.”

So, before his 39^th birthday later this month, Saghy has gently stepped off the corporate ladder and hung out his own shingle, launching a business titled Earned Impression. As the name implies, the business’s purpose is to help its clients maximize engaging touchpoints with audiences across earned, owned and paid media channels in direct support of their business goals. (More about this and Earned Impression’s initial clients, including a continuation in sports, will follow in Part Two.)

TERRIFIC BEGINNINGS

A native of Northeast Ohio, Saghy graduated from Berkshire High School in Burton and went on to study public relations and business at Ohio Northern University. He became a member of the Public Relations Student Society of America, and rose to become the organization’s national president in 2007-08. “I sought to develop close relationships with educators and fellow students in a college setting and that’s exactly what I found at Ohio Northern. Dr. Steve Iseman was (and still is) an amazing mentor who helped me take advantage of opportunities at the national level of PRSSA. He also put some of my early struggles in perspective and kept me motivated to stay in PR. The program remains a pound-for-pound powerhouse producing national leaders to this day under Dr. Alisa Agozzino and I’m proud to remain associated with it.

“The opportunity to serve as a leader for an organization of 10,000 members was truly life-changing,” Saghy adds. “The most impactful lessons came from leading a talented National Committee spread out across the country to accomplish our goals for the year.  Each team member has different motivations, working preferences and skill sets, and it was my job to get the most out of such a diverse group.”

After graduation, Saghy made his way to the Chicago office of one of the nation’s leading PR agencies, Ketchum. There, under the tutelage of widely respected industry leader Ron Culp, he learned the value of hard work and integrity as he aided Ketchum in mastering newly-emerging platforms of social media and blogging while also navigating through The Great Recession with one of the world’s largest asset management companies as a client.

“The agency environment in general is so conducive for learning, which was especially important at the beginning of my career. Those experiences, tools and processes are especially valuable now that I’m running my own firm,” said Saghy.

CUBS AND BUCKEYES

In 2010, Saghy left Ketchum to join the National League’s Chicago Cubs’ communications team. In this capacity, he helped to develop and grow the team’s social media presence while also leading business and community public relations. He and Stephanie got married that same year. Later in his tenure there, he helped lead a transformation of the communications effort into an IMC, or integrated marketing communications, model.  

“Our Cubs’ social media team became nationally recognized for its entertaining voice, content,  and focus toward personal engagement, including the most total interactions with fans among any Major League Baseball club,” Saghy recalls. In 2017, SportsBusiness Journal issued a social engagement study that recognized the Cubs as the top-performing baseball team and the only MLB club ranked among the top 25 global sports organizations.

While with the Cubs, Kevin Saghy also took part in two major, award-winning campaigns. One is still going strong nearly nine years after its creation, Cub fans flying a virtual “W” flag on their social media posts on the days Cubs win ball games.  

“Our communications and marketing teams led the #FlyTheW postseason campaigns, including ideation of the campaign name and hashtag, scheduling of a detailed content plan and executing ‘rolling rally’ activations of the campaign,” he recalls. This campaign, launched in 2015, carried on through what turned out to be the Cubs’ World Series Championship season of 2016. At that point, #FlyTheW was the #1 U.S. trending topic on Twitter.

Saghy also managed the 100^th anniversary campaign of Wrigley Field, including agency oversight. “We secured 2.25 billion impressions, valued at more than $20 million in media value,” he recalls. “More importantly, the campaign increased nearly all of our key business metrics.”

Perhaps one of the most rewarding elements of Kevin’s role was providing media support for Cubs players’ personal charities and foundations, such as the Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation, Jon Lester’s NVRQT (Never Quit) campaign, Kyle Schwarber’s Neighborhood Heroes, and manager Joe Maddon’s Respect 90 Foundation. Sports philanthropy remains a passion of Kevin’s to this day.

While both Kevin and Stephanie were thriving in Chicago, home – in the form of Ohio – was calling. By this time social media’s importance in the fields of public relations and communications had become obvious. Metrics had been developed to measure performance, and – by those metrics – The Ohio State University needed to improve. So, in 2018, it brought in Saghy to help turn around its social media presence.

“The move to Ohio State was compelling because I wanted to see if our team there could replicate the success we’d realized in Chicago using a similar strategic planning process, albeit in an entirely different industry and market,” says Saghy.

And succeed they did. Kevin’s social media team completed a worst-to-first turnaround within the school’s competitive set for primary engagement metrics while rising to #4 out of 405 colleges and universities nationwide. Their strategy development and execution were recognized with a Pride of CASE Platinum Award and showcased as a global finalist. 

Not to rest on his laurels, Kevin advanced into a new head of audience engagement role and developed creative experiences with the Ohio State brand. He helped lead the community-building Buckeye Love campaign that reached new heights in 2023 with 150,000+ gifts shared as random acts of kindness and more than 150 different campus, community and corporate partners participating.

“Having worked on traditional PR/communications teams previously, it was incredibly valuable to work within marketing for those years at Ohio State and focus on building out our brand experience,” comments Saghy.

UP GOES THE CONSULTANT SHINGLE

In the late summer of 2023, Saghy departed Ohio State for the position of vice president, corporate communications and PR with the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. As a lifelong Cavs fan, it looked to be a continuation of the dream. And in many respects, it was.

“I loved being back in the sports front office setting and partnering with different teams to generate interest for the season,” Saghy shares. “There are some great people working there and I still enjoy watching their personal successes.”

But the role just didn’t have the same pull as those little ones at home. Kevin and Stephanie began to reconsider career aspirations together, as all excellently married couples do. And so, Earned Impression was born. Kevin Saghy traded in one dream for another.

IN PART TWO – What Earned Impression does, and its initial clients.

HOW TO CONNECT WITH KEVIN SAGHY
Email: kevin@earnedimpression.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kevinsaghy 
Website: www.earnedimpression.com 

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