Paul Furiga

is president and chief storyteller of WordWrite.

Since its founding in 2002, WordWrite has grown into one of the Pittsburgh region’s largest independent public relations agencies. A perennial top-ranked firm in the annual O’Dwyer’s national rankings, WordWrite posted the fourth-greatest growth among 123 ranked agencies in 2017. In 2019, the Pittsburgh Business Times named WordWrite one of the region’s 50 fastest growing companies.

WordWrite works with providers of complex services, connecting them to the decision makers who hire them. WordWrite does this by uncovering, developing and then sharing an organization’s Capital S Story, the one that stands above all other stories an organization may share because it answers these questions: Why someone should buy from you, work for you, invest in you or partner with you.

Paul’s passion for storytelling comes from his journalism career, in which he wrote 10,000 stories and edited another 10,000. That immersion in the power of stories inspired him to form WordWrite and to write a book on the importance of storytelling in business, Finding Your Capital S Story, available through Leadership Books. The book builds on WordWrite’s trademarked storytelling process, StoryCrafting®, and explains why storytelling is the most effective communication strategy any organization owns.

WordWrite has received numerous awards for its work, from PRSA, IABC and other

professional organizations. Its work has also appeared in PR News books as case studies of excellence.

In 2013, Paul was honored by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Public Relations Society of

America (PRSA) with The Renaissance Hall of Fame Award. The chapter’s highest honor is presented to a veteran public relations professional who has made a substantial impact in the Pittsburgh region.

Before founding WordWrite, Paul was a vice president at Ketchum Public Relations, where he served clients including Alcoa, Bridgestone/Firestone and Rutgers University.

Previously, Paul spent two decades as a journalist. He edited the Pittsburgh Business Times from 1994 to 1998. Paul was an editor and correspondent for the Thomson Washington, D.C. bureau from 1988-1993, where he covered Congress, the White House and four presidential nominating conventions. He also was senior editor of OhioWeek and a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer.

As a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association in 1986-87, Paul was an aide to U.S. Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois and later, issues director for Simon’s 1988

presidential run, leading a staff handling speechwriting, debate preparation and opposition research.

Paul graduated from Miami University in Ohio in 1980 with a degree in mass communication. He is an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) through IABC and is active in the community, serving as vice chair of the River City Brass, and on the board of The Rivers Club.