James K. Gentry, Ph.D., is a professor and former dean at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas.
The Gentry Difference
“Absolutely fantastic! Great blend of nitty-gritty details, theory, opinion and personal experience. I learned more about this topic in one day than I’ve ever learned in my career.”
FACS/Minnesota Journalism Center workshop participant
Gentry is nationally known for his ability to turn complicated financial and accounting information into understandable language for corporate communicators and journalists. Over the past 25 years, he has taught thousands of communicators and journalists how to understand the language of business.
This spring he is teaming with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) to present three two-day workshops on “Communicating Company Results to Build Trust and Reputation.” The first day focuses on “Understanding Financial Statements” and the second on “Using Your Numbers to Create Your Best Annual Report Ever.” The programs will be in San Francisco, New York and Chicago. For more information, go to www.iabc.com/fc/” http://www.iabc.com/fc/.
In the past two years, Gentry has presented workshops on understanding the numbers of business for the public relations team at Cerner Corp., the international communications staff at American Standard Co. (now Trane), the communications leadership at AMC Entertainment, the marketing staff at Teva Neurosciences and the new head of public relations at WABCO in Brussels.
Gentry earned the International Association of Business Communicators’ All-Star Speaker designation for his presentation, “Financial Statements: The Cliff Notes Version in Five Steps,” at the international convention in June. His overall mean score on audience evaluations was 6.38 on a 7-point scale. Speakers who received a rating of 6.25 or above received the designation.
In the area of change, in 1999-2000, Gentry was the primary consultant in helping the Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV and Tampa Bay Online converge their news efforts in a new $34 million facility. Beyond Tampa, he has worked with clients in Salt Lake City, Toronto, the Twin Cities, and others. He has made presentations to numerous professional groups and corporate management teams.
At Kansas, Gentry created and teaches “Financial Fundamentals for Communicators” for graduate students enrolled in the school’s marketing communications master’s program for professionals in the Kansas City area. He also teaches “Writing for Marketing Communications” and “Multimedia Management.”
Over the past three years, Gentry has presented workshops on the numbers of business for thousands of business editors and reporters across the nation under the sponsorship of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University. In January, he led a four-day seminar, “Strictly Financials,” for the Reynolds Center. He’s also done workshops for Bloomberg News, USA Today, the San Jose Mercury News and the Seattle Times.
He presented a series of writing workshops for the Kansas City office of Fleishman-Hillard in summer 2007 and has led three workshops on writing for Exxon Mobil’s public affairs department in the past two years.
In 2003, Gentry received the Society of American Business Editors and Writers’ Distinguished Achievement Award. Gentry was SABEW’s first executive director in 1984-90 and ran the Business Journalism Program while he was at the University of Missouri.
As a dean, he led major (and successful) culture and curriculum change initiatives at the Schools of Journalism at the University of Kansas and University of Nevada, Reno, and has consulted on change with other universities.
Under his deanship, KU’s program was regarded as a national leader in curriculum development and was one of the first schools to recognize the need for cross-platform training for students. Quill magazine reported in 2001 that KU’s School of Journalism was “considered by many to be the model for innovative curriculum revision.”
Prior to joining KU in 1997, Gentry was dean at the University of Nevada, Reno for five years and was a member of the faculty at the University of Missouri School of Journalism for almost 15 years.
Gentry was a reporter and editor for several newspapers before joining the Missouri faculty. He received his Ph.D. in journalism with an emphasis on management and organizational behavior from Missouri in 1993.
