About V. Lovell Brigham

Lovell Brigham is founder and principal of B. Unlimited Communications, LLC, a strategic planning and public relations agency specializing in cultural competence training, development and assessment. As a transformational consultant, she has used her skills to assist state and national organizations in clearly defining a strategy to better improve how they serve their clients and reach culturally diverse populations.

Previously, she served as National Vice President of Cultural Health Initiatives for the American Heart Association. In this capacity, her responsibilities included providing strategic direction for the Association at the national level while also providing guidance to the 12 affiliates across the country. She also worked closely with other departments across the Association to ensure integration of cultural health initiatives, to further the organization’s goal of reducing disability and death related to cardiovascular disease and stroke by 25 percent by the year 2010. Her external responsibilities included building alliances with national organizations that impact the health of racial and ethnic populations to ensure that information is shared regarding the effects of cardiovascular disease and stroke on these population groups.

Prior to joining the American Heart Association, Lovell received a Presidential Political Appointment that first took her to Washington, DC in 1998. She served at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services where she was Director of Communications to former Secretary Donna E. Shalala and was the primary contact for all broadcast interviews. In addition, she assisted in the development of national health media campaigns and outreach focused on educating the public about Medicare Reform and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. She also served as the Deputy Press Officer in the national headquarters for the Social Security Administration.

Additionally, she was a Senior Advisor for Outreach Relations for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health. While in this position, she developed strategies designed to highlight initiatives of the Office of Minority Health and the Department to external organizations and the media. This included organizing large-scale media events, conferences and educational forums focused on educating the public about the disparity in health that exists within certain racial and ethnic populations.

She was also the Vice President in the Health and Medical Practice of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Washington, DC, where she utilized her prior experience to develop strategic marketing opportunities for government clients. Her additional experience includes the development of the communications practice for the Greater Dallas Injury Prevention Center, a program of Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas.

She is also a former television news anchor and reporter in Southeast Texas, where she hosted the area’s first half-hour morning news show. Having minored in political science, she has also worked in politics at the state and national level. She holds a degree in broadcast journalism from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.

As the President of B. Unlimited Communication, Lovell brings a unique depth of knowledge and expertise on a wide range of issues including: communications, public relations, healthcare, Federal government and cultural competence. This experience allows her to strategically focus on those needs specific to her clients with ease acquired from her years of experience. A native of Texas and former television anchor in Southeast Texas, she spent nearly seven years in the Washington working in the Federal government and for a major public relations agency.

National Vice President
American Heart Association
In this position, Lovell brought together both her strategic planning skills and cultural competence training to move an organizations of thousands in a new direction to be more responsive to meet the needs of a changing demographic population. With a combination of creativity and foundation of research, Lovell brought home the reality of the need to adapt to remain relevant in a competitive environment. Through an aggressive but structured process, the organization was able to change internally and improve its external image. She helped engineer a cultural competence assessment review that allowed the organization to begin examining its initiatives related to reach diverse audiences.

Lovell’s additional responsibilities extended to efforts to enhance the agency’s work at the local level through its regional office. Her leadership in advancing the reach of the organization has been applauded and noted far and wide.

Senior Advisor
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services
Office of Minority Health
As a senior advisor in the Office of Minority Health (OMH), Lovell worked on issues related to improving the health status of our nation’s most vulnerable populations. She also worked closely with the Deputy Secretary’s office as this office had the lead role in the Department’s efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities.

Some of the priority initiatives involved launching the Department’s Stroke Belt Elimination Initiative at Forsyth Medical Center in North Carolina. Lovell’s work included program development and securing a representative body of participants for the announcement. Other states receiving funding were the University of Alabama and Medical University of South Carolina.

Lovell was also responsible for implementation of the $2.5 million health literacy campaign focused on reducing infant mortality among African Americans and American Indian/Alaska Natives. The project included focus group testing and gathering data to gauge opinions and trends to inform a national campaign.

Other responsibilities included providing strategic counsel to workgroups that focused on the racial and ethnic populations identified by the Office of Management. These workgroups identified work that the OMH was doing along with gaps that existed to improve health. I also wrote the comprehensive, strategic communications plan for the Department’s disparities initiative Closing the Health Gap. This plan provided a comprehensive overview of the health disparities, communications and outreach opportunities for the Department and its operating divisions.

Vice President
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Washington, DC
Lovell’s knowledge and skills in public affairs arena include the ability to develop a multi-faceted public relations campaign utilizing the most up to date technology and data to reach the broadest possible audience. A specific example involves campaign and conference planning for a national event. While serving as Vice President in the Health and Medical Practice for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Lovell supervised an account team for a multi-million dollar government account through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a national safety conference in Atlanta. A first of its kind conference, this was heavily dependent upon public information/affairs strategy for communications.

This required coordinating multiple tasks with different divisions to culminate in a successful conference. As the lead, Lovell had to work with the creative team to design and edit print materials for distribution at the event. This also involved bringing together hundreds of partners for this monumental event. Research from earlier strategy sessions helped guide the development of the agenda for this conference. This was all the more challenging because the conference came just a few months after September 11, 2001.

Another major client was the District of Columbia’s Department of Health. Given that the city is comprised of a large minority population, most of the initiatives were focused on these populations. One of the city’s HIV/AIDS outreach efforts focused on communities of color to reach gay or bisexual men. In planning this awareness campaign, Lovell had to bring together community-based organization members of African American and Latino populations to develop a single campaign. This was challenging in that while the campaigns had to allow for cultural differences, it was vital that there was some continuity to show it was part of one campaign. The initiative was a successful one but required a knowledge and ability to work with African American and Latino populations to achieve a single goal.

Communications Director
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Office of the Secretary
In her previous position with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Lovell was involved in media outreach for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). The program provides health insurance for children of low-income, working parents. As Communications Director, Lovell developed a strategic plan for outreach through mainstream, specialty and minority press. In addition, the plan included coordination of print and broadcast along with free and paid media opportunities. The plan was to reach those vulnerable through as many communications vehicles as possible. This involved working with local media and radio networks to notify them of the name of the plan in their state and where individuals should go for additional information. In addition, Lovell organized interviews with specialty and minority press to let them know about the availability of the program since many are not reached through mainstream press. Other efforts included specific outreach in Latino markets where the issue of immigrant status was of particular concern. We emphasized that immigrant status would not impact the enrollment of children.

In Latino and African American markets, the Department also bought airtime to run advertisements and bought advertising space in publications that reach these markets. Lovell was also instrumental in getting individuals to participate in talk shows hosted by stations that reached target populations. In addition, Lovell’s team included information on the Department’s radio hotline and sent press notices through blast fax to stations encouraging them to call the hotline to retrieve information about S-CHIP.

In addition to media, she was also involved in coordinating speaking engagements that would allow the Secretary to address diverse populations and inform them of healthcare needs.