Kathleen Wailes

Kathleen M. Wailes is a Senior Vice President of LEVICK and leads its Financial Communications Practice. She has extensive executive experience in corporate communications, investor relations, and transaction communications. Throughout her engagements, Ms. Wailes has facilitated successful deal completion and value enhancement for diverse organizations.

Ms. Wailes has provided strategic communications and investor relations counsel to numerous defense and government contracting clients. In addition to her consulting experience, Ms. Wailes served as chief communications officer for Legg Mason, Inc., Litton Industries, Inc., The Penn Central Corporation, and St. Joe Minerals Corporation. As vice president, ...More corporate communications and investor relations for Litton Industries, a global $5 billion defense and technology company headquartered in Los Angeles, she had worldwide responsibility for all communications and investor relations. Litton’s spokesperson to the investment community, she led a valuation improvement initiative that helped increase the company's market value by more than 100 percent during a period of industry consolidation and declining defense budgets.

Ms. Wailes was also a member of the Litton finance team that raised $700 million in the public debt markets to finance acquisitions. She repositioned the company following the spin-off of its commercial operations, and led a re-branding campaign as it diversified into information technology, while managing communications for several significant acquisitions.

After a Penn Central Corporation proxy fight during which she led communications, management successfully repelled a dissident group challenge. She subsequently repositioned the company among investors and the public during an asset redeployment program, with a resultant doubling of the stock price.

Previously, Ms. Wailes helped triple the stock price of St. Joe Minerals Corporation by expanding its stockholder base in the United States and Europe. She led communications for St. Joe during a hostile takeover attempt by Seagram, followed by a friendly merger with Fluor Corporation.

Ms. Wailes is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute, and served in 2005 as the chairperson of the Financial Executives Networking Group's Investor Relations special interest group.

LEVICK clients trust Ms. Wailes to manage sensitive investor communications around proxy votes, and mergers and acquisitions. She helps companies – from the Fortune 500 to promising start-ups – to articulate transparency, accountability, and value in the markedly contentious post-Dodd-Frank environment.