Kandie Stroud, president and founder of Stroud Communications (dba-Stroud & Associates, LLC) the public affairs she founded in 2005 after a decade leading DNC Radio Communications, is considered a dynamic leader and one of the nation’s leading communications experts with highest-level contacts and extensive experience in all aspects of political affairs and media.
Stroud has been involved in the national conventions since 1996.
Every four years she puts on her convention hat and assists with media event planning and logistics for the National Conventions.
Her 25+ years of public policy, public relations, communications and political experience combined with her background as a best-selling author and national print and broadcast correspondent, provide her with a unique ability to offer clients superior strategic communications advice.
Her strong personal press relationships and political contacts serve as tools to build strategically targeted campaigns for clients, both domestic and international, on all media platforms.
Besides training and leading large teams in planning and executing major media events, including more than 55 Radio Rows, she has arranged more than 55,000 media interviews for the highest level Democrats including President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Cabinet Members, Governors, Ambassadors, US Senators and Congressmen, labor leaders, Military leaders, Hollywood and media celebrities, pollsters, and issues experts.
She has provided crisis communications and media strategy on behalf of prominent political leaders, political prisoners and activists around the globe, including in Venezuela Singapore and the Middle East. She has worked on critical advocacy campaigns including the president’s Affordable Care Act, the campaign to remove BPA from plastic bottles, Sierra Club campaigns for a cleaner environment, Social Security and Medicare, Citizens United, as well as Jewish and Catholic issues. She has also provided communication services to dozens of authors including Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, CNN founder Reese Schonfeld, human rights attorney Bob Amsterdam and Duke Lacrosse coach Mike Pressler. She represents Right On!--the World’s Greatest Show Band—the only band in America to have played for four presidential Inaugurals and she has organized highest level entertainment to the RFK 50th Anniversary as well as the WNDC celebrations of the Women’s Marches on Washington.
Prior to her work in Democratic communications, Stroud spent more than two decades as a national print and broadcast journalist in the nation’s capitol, reporting on major stories ranging from presidential campaigns and conventions to human interest stories and international affairs. At CNN she was the first woman Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for a major network. She wrote front-page stories for the New York Times. Her stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, New York Magazine, the Huffington Post, Ladies Home Journal., McCalls and Town and Country. Reporting for Capitol Cities Broadcasting and Talk Media News Network she has broadcast live from Russia, Iran, Africa, Poland, Norway, Jamaica, Europe and all 50 states. She has co-hosted shows on foreign affairs, health and politics. She covered Washington for Fairchild Publications, WWD and W for a decade. She was feature reporter for WRC-TV where she created the weekly series, “Lifestyle,” profiling presidential candidates and their families, as well as members of the House and Senate, Hollywood celebrities and local sports heroes. Stroud has been a guest on hundreds of radio and television programs including the Today Show, Nightline and the Charlie Rose show. She was a regular commentator for Capitol Cities Broadcasting, ABC’s David Susskind Show and WTOP TV, the CBS affiliate in Washington and did commentary on CBS with Dan Rather.
She is the best-selling author of How Jimmy Won: The Victory Campaign from Plains to the White House (William Morrow). She was named an Outstanding Young Women of America and received the Distinguished Alumna award from her alma mater, Newton College (now Boston College). President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Arts. She was elected to three terms as chairman of the board of the Choral Arts Society of Washington, one of the nation’s leading symphonic choruses with whom she sings and records and has performed at the Kennedy Center and worldwide for more than 30 years. She speaks five languages including English, Spanish, Italian, German and French. She studies classical ballet at the Washington School of Ballet.