Board Member Spotlight: Kristen Vitartas
Posted on Mar. 4, 2023
By Sheba Sulser
The world of public relations can seem like a juggling act. Balancing work, family, and activities is no easy feat. What can make this even more challenging is running a prestigious organization on top of all that.
However, this is no problem for PRSA Central Ohio President, Kristen Vitartas, who is taking her newly elected presidential position in stride.
Vitartas graduated from Otterbein University in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in organizational communication and public relations and earned her Master of Science degree in healthcare communication from Purdue University in 2020. She is currently a senior strategist on the corporate communications team at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
In college, Vitartas was first exposed to PRSA as part of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). She joined the Central Ohio PRSA chapter in 2014 and quickly became an active member. Her greatest accomplishment was helping with the website redesign and switching to a new content management system.
She has served in several leadership positions throughout the chapter including website committee chair (2015-2018), director-at-large (2018-2020), and VP of membership (2020). She then entered the track to PRSA president serving as treasurer (2021), president-elect (2022), and now president.
As president, Vitartas’s goal for her term is to grow membership through programming and personal outreach.
“We have an incredible community of public relations and communication professionals in this city, and I want to create more opportunities to bring all these great minds together,” Vitartas said.
Joining PRSA helped Vitartas grow personally and professionally. She strives to help others have those same experiences and opportunities.
“PRSA has opened so many doors for me,” Vitartas said, “Without PRSA I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to branch out and learn about different organizations and meet different people, all of whom are there for each other when needed.”
About the author: Sheba Sulser is a first-year student at The Ohio State University where she is majoring in strategic communications. She is from Bucyrus, Ohio, and recently graduated from high school and community college with her associate of arts degree in business administration. Sheba is a member of the OSU PRSSA chapter and an account associate in The PRactice. Her goal is to work in media relations/public relations in the sports or healthcare industry.
