Helen J.
Storyteller | Speaker | Emcee | Host | Interviewer at helen jonsen media
Public Speaking/Storytelling
Education: Fordham Univ.
New York, NY, USA
Biography
Helen Jonsen is the founder and chief storyteller of helen jonsen media. As a seasoned speaker, interviewer, and workshop presenter she draws on her diverse experience across various media platforms including television, online and in-person. She hosts the "This Kaleidoscope Career" podcast.
As a consultant, Helen specializes in empowering mission-driven organizations to effectively communicate their stories through executive coaching and stakeholder engagement to cultivate ambassadors.
Her impressive career as a journalist spans being a television news correspondent and producer with roles at NBC News, NYC's Channels 5 & 11, Australian networks, and Forbes Video Network. Helen has made significant contributions as a writer and editor, with positions at Forbes.com and workingmother.com, covering a wide range of topics from breaking news to Wall Street to leadership.
Helen has presented at prestigious events such as Forbes Women's Summits, Working Mother Best Companies events, Swedish-American Executive Women's Conferences, and CureSearch for Children’s Cancer Summit.
A more recent iteration of her kaleidoscope career has been leading public affairs communications for the largest NY district attorney's office north of NYC and at New York City Economic Development Corporation.
As a journalist or subject expert on executive, nonprofit and enterprise communications, women's leadership, media relations, and work-life-parenting issues, as well as a spokesperson for public organizations, Helen has appeared on CBS, Good Morning America, CNN, Forbes network, WNYW-TV, WPIX-TV, NPR, PBS To the Contrary, Australia's Ten Network as well as local TV stations across the U.S., podcasts and countless publications.
Helen is the author of four books on Australian English, including Kangaroo’s Comments & Wallaby’s Words, the Aussie Word Book; Hippocrene Travel and Language Series: Australia; and was a contributor to Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox (2015); and Seven Pearls of Financial Wisdom (2012).
Helen is a member of the Society of the Silurians, America’s oldest press club, SAG-AFTRA, and the Writer’s Guild of America.
As a volunteer, she is involved with Girl Scouts in the New York area and serves on the development committee of the Board of CureSearch for Children’s Cancer.
She is a recent graduate of Leadership Westchester and a proud Fordham University and WFUV alum.
She is "mum" to four grown children (Oh! the stories!) and she makes her home in New York's Hudson Valley.
Passion
Helen's passion is to give others the tools that need to be confident and memorable speakers, and ambassadors who can amplify their missions through solid speaking skills and personal storytelling.
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
Everything is negotiable
Topics
Best Story
My kaleidoscope career was underway in my final two years as a full-time Fordham College student. I worked as a newbie professional in New York at a all-news radio station, in a television news department, and reported for a chain newspaper while editor-in-chief of a college paper and host of America's now longest-running student-hosted Irish radio show. I was multimedia before there was multimedia. And then, I stopped working for the first time since I was 14 and went on a road trip across America in a classic beaten up car with two friends...
Origin Story
As the youngest of six, Helen's curiosity was stoked by family stories of her mother's childhood resilience, her father's service in France following D-Day, seeing her much-older brothers and sister serve in the Army and Air Force during the Viet Nam era, encyclopedias at the dinner table, the evening news, and summer driving trips across America. She watched her mother write beautiful letters and cards to friends, family and penpals, telling family stories and news. Picking up a pen and writing came naturally as did winning speech contests in high school, editing a college paper and hosting a radio show. All of it laid the groundwork for a kaleidoscope career filled with fascinating opportunities while raising a big family of her own as they faced life-threatening illness.
Example talks
The Kaleidoscope Career
KEYNOTE
The pandemic followed by the great resignation has forced workers, especially mid- and late-career employees and entrepreneurs, to examine what they have to offer and how their talents and skills set them up to succeed.
Job-hopping or resume gaps were once frowned upon -- but they should not be. They should be seen as opportunities to build on skills and experience and should be celebrated! Pivots are not pivots, career changes are not changes when talents are manifested in new and interesting ways.
Like a kaleidoscope uses the same colorful glass pieces and shifts them around to form an infinite number of beautiful and spectacular images, the same can be said of your talents and skills. You switch them up and find exciting new ways to use them.
Podcast where Helen describes Kaleidoscope Career The Op-Ed Page with Elisa Camahort Page: https://tinyurl.com/2yxen5kd
CULTIVATING AMBASSADORS: YOUR MISSION. YOUR STORY. AMPLIFIED
EVERY stakeholder connected with your organization must be empowered to engage with one voice. Helen energizes the audience to work with all teams and stakeholders–whether the Board, staff, members, volunteers, donors or advocates–to become more powerful confident ambassadors for the mission.
Action Items:
How to tie personal storytelling to the mission and its impact
How presentation/media training for all stakeholders can grow your mission
WHY: Because everyone you meet is a potential donor, volunteer, member, client, advocate, or next board member!
KEYNOTE OR INTERACTIVE TALK RELEVANT TO THE AUDIENCE
FOR STAFF, FUNDERS, BOARD MEMBERS: Answer the question "why CULTIVATE ambassadors?"
FOR ALL STAKEHOLDERS:
How to hone and use personal storytelling to drive the mission.
How to build better fundamental communication skills for introductions and networking.
How to create a personal passion statement to walk away with a win.
Helen speaks about the why on this video podcast. https://rb.gy/r460m4
Cameras! Cameras! Everywhere!
60 Minutes journalist Dan Rather wrote a book called The Camera Never Blinks. When he wrote that he was referring only to the television news camera capturing an interview (or life as it was happening). Now, we are in front of digital video cameras, live or recorded, for business and pleasure on and off all day long. We take it for granted. But sometimes, the end product, especially in a professional setting, is not what we hoped it would be.
INTERACTIVE TALK OR WORKSHOP
TAKEAWAY: From a career in front of the camera and behind it, Helen can guide a roomful of all levels of speakers through best practices in a fun and engaging way. By the end of the talk or workshop, pros will be ready for the next zoom call, stage or TV interview.
See Helen interview Michael J. Fox on Forbes Video Network https://vimeo.com/105670764
Change Girl Talk to Woman Talk
Many women feel unheard because they have been shut down too often or told: "It's not polite to..." From the way women introduce themselves to apologizing for speaking out or disagreeing, they diminish their power as leaders. With signature humor and good fun, Helen offers a list of best practices, tips and tools to take control to become acknowledged and listened to.
INTERACTIVE TALK (LUNCH N' LEARN, ETC.)
TAKEAWAYS: This talk will help every woman (and girl) in the room become a more impactful communicator and get taken seriously.
That Work-Mom Thing! How Does She Do It?
When did being a mom go from survival tasks to a service job? As a former editor at Working Mother and a big-family mom of 4 (as well as the 6th of 6), Helen sets it straight in a humorous engaging take on doing it all but maybe not all at the same time.
This talk is inspirational, based on stories of Helen's resilience and day-to-day experience along with the experience of some well-known women Helen has interviewed through the years including Cherie Blair, Emma Thompson, corporate leaders, and more.
TAKEAWAY: Through serious illness, traveling from NYC to Australia with small children including emergency crash-landing in a jumbo jet, or living in a public fishbowl, working moms make it work! Your audience will feel empowered to get through their lives knowing they are not alone and maybe there's more good than bad in family life.
Watch Helen's interview with UK 'First Lady" and human rights activist Cherie Blair.
https://vimeo.com/105656046