TOM MADDEN
TransMedia Group CEO and Chairman
First, I would like to introduce myself, but without sounding too self-promotional, which isn’t easy as I’ve had a somewhat lucky career. Some would call it luck, but I’ve always found if you work hard enough and non-stop until you achieve your goals, luck will find you and people will pat you on the back as one lucky guy.
I started out along the luck road when I became a newspaper reporter, working at small newspapers until one day I was lucky to be offered a job as reporter at one or the largest papers in the country in the city where I was born, The Philadelphia Inquirer. I was lucky to cover and write many front-page stories from interviewing media stars like Muhammad Ali to President Nixon. Then I was lucky to land a job with a top PR firm and was assigned their largest client, Kellogg Company, for whose chairman I wrote speeches that luckily were reprinted in The New York Times.
Then the luckiest thing happened, American Broadcasting Companies asked me to go to work for them, where I was lucky to meet TV genius programmer Fred Silverman who luckily liked the way I wrote his speeches and press releases, so when he became CEO of NBC, I hit the luck jackpot when he brought me with him as his Vice President, Assistant to the President. What amazing luck to zoom right up to the #2-ranked executive position, making me proud as a Peacock.
After a couple years there, I decided to really test my luck and I started my own PR firm in Manhattan and as luck would have it, I landed at the time what was the largest company in America as a client, AT&T. I also got The City of New York as a client. What luck! Forty years later, I’m still lucky to be alive and kicking as CEO of TransMedia Group now serving clients worldwide under the direction of my super productive daughter, Adrienne Mazzone.
Yes, I’m reproductively lucky too!
Besides an inveterate blogger, Tom Madden is an author of countless published articles and five books, including his latest, WORDSHINE MAN, available now on Amazon. He also creates TV series like his latest Xtra Terresla whose main character is modeled after Tesla founder Leon Musk, soon to own Twitter.
Madden is the founder and CEO of TransMedia Group, an award-winning public relations firm serving clients worldwide since 1981 and has conducted remarkably successful media campaigns and crisis management for America’s largest companies and organizations. Tom is also founder of PlanetaryLifeguard.org.
"I had a wonderful conversation with Tom Madden, and he answered my burning questions on Crisis Management, Negative Advertising, and general PR related issues. It was also a pleasure learning who is Tom Madden from the man himself! I am so thankful that I was allowed to have a Candid Conversation!
Thank you to his amazing team for coordinating the Live!"
- Adrienne Barker, Host of Candid Conversations with Adrienne Barker
"If Elvis and Buddy Holly are the Cain and Abel of rock and roll, Bruce Springsteen is Zachariah, Iggy Pop is Methuselah, and, of course, Neil Young is the wise prophet Ezekiel, then what does that make Tom Madden? Tom has been called the Sultan of Spin, The big boss of the byline, the fresh prince of pitch & lovingly the archangel of angle. Tom Madden did wonders for our Company, headquartered in South Florida, he used his PR & Communications expertise to provide results for both B2B and B2C brands. Tom's a true professional in every sense of the word and very well respected in the South Florida Business Community for many years. This is a great interview Tom, all the best!"
- Ken Manfredi, former CEO of Cellular One