The youngest in a long line of entrepreneurs, Adele Gambardella-Cehrs always knew she’d be running her own company some day. In fact, leaving the world of large corporate PR to start her own firm is her proudest accomplishment to date. As President of Epic, Adele has overseen the development of numerous award-winning local and national PR campaigns. Epic’s clients include Fortune 500 companies, regional businesses, non-profits, associations and high-profile individuals, and Adele makes a point of working very closely with all of them, providing strategic counsel and day-to-day management oversight.
Adele’s core expertise includes crisis communications, issues management, trade and national media relations, corporate public relations and integrated marketing communications. She also does all of the agency’s media training herself, preparing some of the most recognized names in business for interviews with journalists, analysts and other audiences.
A recognized PR expert, Adele has been featured in Voice of America, Washington Business Journal, PR Week, Bulldog Reporter and the Washington Post. She has also appeared on CNN Headline News, NBC4, WUSA9 News, NPR and Fox Business Network Happy Hour. Earlier in her career, Adele worked for TSI Communications, a Madison Avenue PR Firm, specializing in technology. She was also an executive at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, where she worked on clients such as DuPont, Maxwell House Coffee, Select Comfort, My Library DV and Yum Brands. Adele’s early years were spent as a journalist for such publications George Magazine, and The Asbury Park Press, helped shape her expertise in media relations.
Adele is on the board of several other area nonprofits. It is her policy that Epic take on one pro-bono client per quarter, such as the 5k Colon Cancer Walk and the Mercy Clinic. She also enjoys sharing her knowledge through speaking engagements and has given talks at the Women’s Power Conference, Media Made Simple Events with ASID and the DC Chamber of Commerce Do’s and Don’ts Panel on Media Relations.
Adele is actually short for Adelgisa, an Italian family name that has been passed on through several generations of Gambardella’s. Not surprisingly, Adele’s earliest childhood memory is the aroma of her mother’s homemade pasta sauce, and Rome remains her favorite place. Another top travel destination is Puerto Rico—Adele can tip you off to a spot where you can swim with bioluminescent microorganisms, which she compares to “swimming with fireflies.” When she’s not working over the weekend, Adele likes to cook, swim, watch classic films with her husband Erik and let her hair down with a group of old friends known as “the nutmeg girls”.