Caroline McCarthy is the founder of Raccoon Strategies, a boutique communications and strategy consultancy that works with cutting-edge technology companies and their executives as they navigate times of peak innovation and upheaval. Rooted in her natural competitiveness as a Division 1 college rower and lifelong endurance athlete, Caroline’s work puts a tactical lens on strategic communications through initiatives that produce tangible results and drive business outcomes — from investor and client narrative development and training to industry awards recognition. She has led successful award campaigns for work from companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Unilever; has secured honors in competitions like the Webby Awards, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, Festival of Media, and more; and has earned clients recognition in publications from The New York Times to Business Insider to CNBC and prepared them for global stages like TED and the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. After starting her career as a print and TV journalist, Caroline pivoted to a role at Google where she was responsible for helping the company develop relationships with next-generation digital agencies, turn business leaders like Richard Branson into power users and evangelists of Google’s then-newly launched video chat platform, and connect media outlets with data storytelling opportunities like a National Geographic feature that used Google Books data to chart the growth of linguistic colloquialisms that originated in 17th-century English writing. Since then, she has worked with and within companies like Disney, 21st Century Fox, and Intel. Caroline is an alumna of TED’s Residency program, which identifies high-potential executives with “ideas worth spreading” and trains them in talk development, memorization, and delivery. One TED Talk and one TEDx Talk later, she now helps clients to do the same (among other things). She has been published in CNET, TechCrunch, Vogue, The Spectator, and more, and has served on nonprofit boards and councils dedicated to digital freedom and access. She graduated with honors from Princeton University and currently lives with three cats who are all named after various cultures’ goddesses of war and/or death.