African American Journalist and Corporate Communications Consultant Temporarily Joins Staff of The Chronicle

Beverly Norman-Cooper, an award-winning journalist, editor and corporate communications consultant, has joined The Chronicle for a six-week volunteer assignment. She will work side-by-side with the paper's staff to gain a better understanding of the Ghanaian news media and to share American journalism's best practices.

“I'm excited and honored to be working with the dedicated and committed professionals at The Chronicle,” said Ms. Norman-Cooper. “With the world watching as Ghana celebrates 50 years of independence, I can't think of no better place to be than here, at this paper, witnessing this historic moment.”

Ms. Norman-Cooper has lived in California's San Francisco Bay Area for the past 27 years. She began her journalism career as a police and court reporter for a small chain of newspapers in Georgia. There, she won a first place Associated Press (AP) Newswriting Award and a Georgia Press Association Award for an investigative series on police corruption.

Later, she joined the Knight-Ridder Corporation. At the time, Knight-Ridder was one of the largest newspaper chains in the U.S.
At 25, she became the managing editor of a small, African American weekly newspaper in Florida.

Ms. Norman-Cooper earned her Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from New York's Columbia University. She and her husband, also a Columbia MBA, designed their own curriculum, “Urban Entrepreneurship,” which focused on how to revitalise America's inner-city businesses.

For the past 20 years, she has run her own communications consultancy.

Her clients include IBM, telecommunications company Pacific Bell (now AT&T), and Kaiser Permanente, an 8-million member, $34 billion healthcare organization. In her role, she advises senior executives on how to develop and execute business-driven strategic communications.