Lisa Skinner is #MadeForKnoxville
With an extensive and well-traveled repertoire of work in public relations, marketing and entrepreneurship, it’s easy to see the diverse skill and talent Lisa brings to Knoxville.
After work experience in Canada, South America and all over Europe, to entrepreneurial pursuits amidst typhoons in the South Pacific, missile fire in Tel Aviv and tough life decisions in Puerto Rico, Lisa somehow found her way to Knoxville. Since her arrival, she has become an involved and important contributor to the community through her writing, consulting and entrepreneurship.
As an “outspoken advocate” for downtown Knoxville, and truly a champion of others–especially local women in business–Lisa embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of the Scruffy City, while also contributing to its culture of community support and celebration.
Lisa offers ghostwriting/editing brand strategy, writing for digital platforms and scripting videos for a wide range of businesses and topics.
“It is incredibly empowering to get up each morning as your own boss, spending the day creating a product that people want.”
photo by Shawn Poynter
In Their Own Words..
I have worked in public relations & marketing around the world, from the South Pacific (& Alaska); also traveling to and working within most of the major countries in Europe, within Canada and to South America. My road to entrepreneurship has been riddled with typhoons in the South Pacific, missile fire in Tel Aviv and “betting the farm” to move from Puerto Rico to Knoxville on totally new careers for my husband and myself.
In Guam I started up/introduced new product lines of UHT milk and bottled water to Micronesian islanders for better survivability after supertyphoons. In Tel Aviv (named Startup City by Wired Magazine) I got my first taste of what business accelerators (like KEC) COULD look like WHILE my group and I were under intermittent Hamas missile fire (and I began preaching internet/ broadband access upon my return from Israel to Knoxville, speaking everywhere from a Tech 2020 “Lunch & Learn” to Rotary Clubs to Junior League to guest lecturing at UT).
I realized the link between female entrepreneurial success & free/easy internet connectivity/access in rural areas while working on a reginonal Levi’s Foundation grant program with local women leaders including Ronni Chandler, Exec Director/CEO of Project Grad and Amy Cathey, UT Executive Director of Graduate and Executive Education at Haslam College of Business. And in 2010 my husband & I started moving away from conventional jobs to co-owning Knoxville Animal Clinic, which we still run with our business partner today, pandemic be damned. I’m a founding member of Women in Entrepreneurship Knoxville (at the KEC), founding member of Women in Entrepreneurship Blount; have served as a judge for the annual “What’s the Big Idea” contest and was co-chair of the advisory board until last year at Knoxville Development Corporation’s Fairview Technology Center (entrepreneurial startup facility).
I am a champion/cheerleader for regional women in entrepreneurship, attending their grand openings, widely posting about them on social media and mentoring them gratis. As a Leadership Knoxville 2015 graduate (my LK classmate is Jim Biggs of KEC), I now serve as an LK mentor to a UT student who’s up for a Fulbright, & am assisting the current LK mentor program on its 2021 appropriate matches. I also am a UT Promise mentor. And I run my own ghostwriting/editing brand strategy business, writing across the digital platforms and scripting videos for corporate clients in local and international economic development, national healthcare, statewide public works projects, international industry, and groundbreaking IT.
I’ve won five Golden PressCard Awards for writing excellence in the last seven years, 2013-2019. And I’m an outspoken advocate for Downtown Knoxville, currently living with my husband & two rowdy puppies in a loft, serving on the Downtown Design Review Board, Animal Control Board (both mayoral appointments) and as vice president of CityPeople downtown residents association.
Interested in sharing your “Made for Knoxville” story? Submit here!
