About Phillip Yates

Managing communication strategies for conservation projects in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex  and ambiguous world can be daunting. As a long-time communication and project management professional, Phillip Yates, APR, PMP, PMI-RMPPMI-ACP, has learned how to leverage strategic storytelling to simplify complexity, navigate uncertainty and deliver collaborative outcomes for challenging conservation projects.

Communication and Strategic Storytelling

Phillip is an award-winning public relations and public affairs professional focused on delivering collaborative conservation outcomes. He has helped government and nonprofit conservation organizations successfully complete hundreds of projects and achieve their key goals by leveraging strategic communication and project management best practices.

Project Management And Risk Strategy

Phillip has earned Project Management Professional (PMP), Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) and Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) certifications. His experience leveraging those certifications in challenging conservation public affairs efforts can help project managers meaningfully engage stakeholders and complete successful public affairs and community engagement projects.

Tribal Representatives, city staff and community members stand in The Peoples' Crossing in west Boulder during a 2023 consultation.

Tribal Engagement and Consultation

Phillip helps manage the City of Boulder’s Tribal Nation consultation program. He organizes and helps facilitate City-Tribal Nation consultations, helping the city to build and sustain relationships with American- Indian Tribal Nations. He is grateful for the relationships the city has developed with Tribal Representatives and thanks them for their willingness to share their knowledge with the Boulder community.

Outdoor Recreation
Communication

Phillip Yates has developed outdoor recreation communication strategies for 13 years. While at City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks – which receives more visits than most U.S. National Parks – he has regularly worked with reporters across the country to communicate how the city is managing outdoor recreation amid the increase in visitation to public lands.

Natural Resource
Communication

Phillip has in-depth knowledge of effective land conversation messaging strategies from years of experience working for nonprofit and government conservation organizations. He also has extensive knowledge of communication planning best practices learned from developing and implementing successful natural resource communication projects.

Crisis and Risk
Communication

Phillip has provided crisis communication support for many challenging community crises. He led several COVID-19 responsible recreation messaging efforts amid the increase in visitation to public lands in 2021. He also has provided extensive community communication support during the many emergency events, including floods and wildfires, in Boulder, Colorado.

Impact and Corporate Social Responsibility

Phillip designed and implemented corporate responsibility media projects that generated extensive media coverage and helped nonprofit organizations to achieve their strategic objectives. Phillip also developed data-driven strategies that helped conservation organizations generate coverage from many media outlets, including the New York Times.

Visual Storytelling and
Photography

Phillip Yates’ photographic work focuses on photojournalism, portraiture and street photography. For the last several years, he has honed his visual storytelling approach by using film cameras, including medium format cameras and a wide range of film stocks. View Phillip’s photographic galleries, including images that capture the special look of analog film.

Storytelling and Journalism

Phillip started his career as a newspaper reporter, covering energy, politics, crime and breaking news in Texas and Colorado. His reporting generated exclusive stories and he was honored with several deadline journalism awards. Phillip’s experience as a reporter has been the foundation for his strategic communication successes.

Professional
Certifications

Phillip Yates has earned project management, risk management and public relations certifications that help him simplify complexity and navigate uncertainty in challenging public affairs projects.

  • The Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) certification demonstrates professional expertise in developing public relations, public affairs and strategic communication campaigns that achieve organizational objectives. It requires extensive knowledge of reputation risk management risk strategies and experience in public relations research, strategic communications planning, media relations and crisis communications.

  • The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification demonstrates in-depth experience in leveraging agile project management and project risk management best practices to complete complex public relations and public affairs projects. Certification also demonstrates extensive knowledge of effective stakeholder engagement, project communication and risk management techniques, such as risk identification, risk analysis, risk response planning and project risk monitoring.

  • The Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) certification demonstrates in-depth knowledge of anticipating and managing change and implementing risk management and risk assessment best practices. The accreditation requires in-depth experience in identifying problems, assessing project risks, mitigating threats, maximizing results, meeting deadlines and seizing strategic opportunities. Insights gained from this certification can help organizations complete successful public relations, public affairs and community engagement projects.

  • The Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification provides public relations, public affairs and community engagement professionals with critical knowledge to help them complete projects with a high rate of change, complexity and risk. The certification also provides crisis management professionals a framework to navigate crisis communication challenges.

Professional Certificates

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides insights into evaluating brand purposes, identifying target audiences and creating integrated marketing communications. It also provides students with knowledge to identify opportunities that will affect their brand’s market position and guidance on creating brand positioning strategies.

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides students with knowledge of marketing strategy, decision-making tools and market research and analysis. It also provides participants with insights on how to communicate the value of their brands and how to introduce new products.

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides students lessons on leadership models that leaders can use in their day-to-day jobs, along with insights on positional power and the state of the relationship between employees and leaders. The certificate program also provides behaviors that will most effectively influence and motivate public sector employees to perform at a high level and meet the organization's goals.

  • The social impact measurement certificate from Arizona State University helps professionals and organizations understand how social impact measurement fits into their management structures and how to design social impact evaluations.

  • This certificate from the University of Colorado and B:CIVIC – a Colorado-based nonprofit association of professionals – provides practical CSR knowledge and a “toolbox” of social responsibility resources. It also offers students opportunities to hear from local, regional and global CSR experts that will spark ideas and insights and expand their community of peers, helping students to make valuable professional connections.

  • This University of Colorado-Coursera program provides stakeholder engagements professionals insights on how to “engage and approach complex problems, engage effectively with stakeholders and collect and analyze data to solve community transformation changes.”

  • This specialization from Coursera and the University of Pennsylvania is designed to give professionals “the tools and strategies [they] need to create measurable social impact around the world.” It provides students with strategies to “achieve sustainable social impact” and “profits with purpose.”

  • This certificate program from Harvard’s Business School “illustrates how businesses can thrive and grow while simultaneously solving some of the world’s biggest challenges.” It helps students “understand and analyze business models that drive change and how to communicate the competitive advantages of being a purpose-driven leader to management, leadership, and other key stakeholders.”

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides students with knowledge of marketing strategy, decision-making tools and market research and analysis. It also provides participants with insights on how to communicate the value of their brands and how to introduce new products.

  • This course from Velociteach provides project managers with more in-depth information on how to initiate, plan, implement, monitor and close projects. The certificate program focused on the long-term consequences of early decisions and the critical importance stakeholders play in successful projects.

  • This course from the Project Management Institute provided key insights and guidance on implementing change management programs. Coursework included information on change management frameworks and strategies for responding to challenges in implementing change management programs.

  • This certificate program from the Public Relations Society of America equips “management-level communicators with advanced perspectives, best practices and practical, implementation-ready approaches to managing reputation risk.”

  • Velociteach’s certificate program teaches students practices, tools, and techniques for managing project risk. The class also gave students information on the principles and methodologies of risk management and provided risk analysis frameworks that students could use immediately.

  • The Velociteach course provides broad frameworks to help project managers address and navigate project uncertainty. It included information on key risk terms and how to conduct qualitative risk analyses.

  • This course from the Project Management Institute is intended to help organizations adapt (in real-time) amid the challenges associated with COVID-19. The course included information on responding effectively to risks, managing in a crisis and establishing effective virtual teams.

Experience

Awards

  • Public Relations Society of America, Colorado Chapter – Gold Pick for Community Relations

  • Public Relations Society of America, Colorado Chapter – Silver Pick for Community Relations

  • Public Relations Society of America, Colorado Chapter – Silver Pick for Integrated Communications

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Platinum winner for Communications and Marketing

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Platinum winner for Integrated Marketing

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Gold winner for Communications and Marketing

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Gold winner for E-Newsletters

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Gold winner for Photography, People and Portraits

  • Colorado Press Association – Second place for Deadline Journalism

  • Texas Associated Press Managing Editors – First place for Team Effort

  • Texas Associated Press Managing Editors – Second place for Star Breaking News Report

  • Morris Journalism Excellence Award – Deadline Journalism

  • New Mexico Associated Press – Honorable Mention for Breaking News

  • Amarillo Globe-News – Employee of the Month

  • City of Boulder – Value Award