“I learned at a young age that I love stories,” says Rachel Schramm ’18/’20 MBA. “I knew I wanted to be a storyteller, but I wasn’t sure exactly how. In college, I fell into the world of communication.”
Rachel started at Olivet Nazarene University as a radio broadcast and psychology double major, with a minor in legal studies. While sitting in a freshman seminar session with Dr. Jay Martinson, who was the chair of the Department of Communication at the time, she watched a video of an Olivet alumna who had worked on the marketing and game day experience teams for the Indianapolis Colts. That day, Rachel began to dream of working for her hometown team, the Detroit Lions. She even set LinkedIn job alerts with the Lions, hoping that one day her career would take her back to Ford Field.
Eventually, Rachel shifted her studies to corporate communication, but the coursework wasn’t quite the right fit. Although she was enjoying her college life at Olivet, she was still unsettled about her chosen major as she finished the first semester of her freshman year.
“I actually considered transferring schools,” Rachel reflects. “But Dr. Jay (who was also my academic advisor) said, ‘Give me a semester, I have something cooking.’”
The next spring, Olivet announced plans for a public relations (PR) major and Rachel was invited to help launch the program as a student leader.
“Almost my whole undergraduate experience ended up being about PR,” she reflects. “I helped start Olivet’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America and got it nationally affiliated. I also was on the launch team for Inspired Strategies Agency (ISA). Playing a part in building the PR program from the ground up was so impactful on my career.”
The summer after graduation, Rachel moved to Colorado for an internship at Compassion International, a global nonprofit that is focused on bringing the light of Christ to children living in poverty through local church partnerships. That fall, when an opportunity to return to Olivet enroll in a master’s program and work as a graduate assistant in the communications department opened up, Rachel decided to move back to the Midwest.
“To be honest, I know that I could’ve received a good education in a lot of different places, but Olivet had uniquely shaped me and my core values — my university experience defined me as a person,” Rachels says. “I think what sold it for me was the opportunity to also be the graduate assistant for the PR program.”
The season of life was challenging as she was taking graduate-level classes while simultaneously teaching multiple undergraduate courses to students who had previously been her peers, and providing academic advising for PR majors. Still, she found purpose in investing in the young PR program as it had been majorly influential in her own journey.
The end of her MBA program at Olivet coincided with the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The University had temporarily transitioned all classes online to finish the spring 2020 semester and the job market shifted drastically. After many fruitless searches, Rachel finally secured a job with the City of Kankakee Economic and Community Development Agency, which utilized her unique blend of PR, nonprofit and legal studies knowledge.
Rachel cherished the extra time she had in Kankakee County, but after a year, she began to look for marketing agency positions in downtown Chicago. She eventually secured a position working with governmental and nonprofit clients in media relations. In her role, she also dipped her toes in digital media and found that the work resonated with her interests. After a year, Rachel was looking to change her work when a fellow Olivet alumna, Andi Pivaronas ’20, connected her with a recruiter at Weber Shandwick, a major global PR firm.
“When I was at Olivet, we met and networked with students from a lot of big schools with big PR programs and early on in my career, it was intimidating to know that those students often scored internship and job placements because of their college affiliations,” Rachel reflects. “It would have been easy to talk myself out of a job, but I have Detroit grittiness in me. I decided that having a degree from Olivet is my advantage — and that’s the angle I took in interviews. I shot my shot and I made it!”
The conversation with the recruiter shifted from a general discussion about career goals to an overview of a remote Detroit-based senior account executive position with one of Weber Shandwick’s major clients, Chevrolet — under General Motors(GM). Rachel was overjoyed at the opportunity.
In the 2.5 years she worked in that role, she continued to live in Chicago, allowing her to invest in the community she had built there. When the opportunity opened up internally to transition to leading experiential partnerships for Chevrolet social media, Rachel positioned herself for the opportunity and again got the job.
“That role was life-changing for me,” Rachel says. “There were so many things going on under the GM umbrella. I learned quickly to appreciate the automotive industry — it really does impact everyone. I also got to work with partners like Major League Baseball, Country Music Association, American Cancer Society, Army-Navy and other major organizations. I promoted 15 of Chevy’s 17 vehicles and did a ton of travel around the country. It was a fast-paced, unique one-of-one experience.”
Eventually, GM went through a request for proposals process, in which companies reevaluate their agency contracts. Although Weber Shandwick still held the Chevrolet social account, the team had a shakeup and Rachel decided it was time for a change.
“I had been out of Michigan for about 10 years and I was really feeling drawn back. I sold my Chicago apartment and everything in it and traveled for about six months, working remotely. Eventually I applied for the position of Director of Organic Social at Monks Agency — which required a relocation to the client office in Detroit. I told God that getting the job would serve as my final sign that it was time to move back.”
Rachel got the job and was thrown into her most-difficult agency role yet. The globally-recognized agency had high standards for the new director-level role managing relationships with Buick, GMC and Cadillac. Rachel regularly worked 70-90-hour weeks during her one year at the agency, which put a massive strain on her mental and emotional health.
“I was doing everything I could to be successful at work in building the account,” Rachel reflects. “But God really challenged me in my work identity during that year. I moved back to Michigan, I felt God calling me to consider His priorities — what does success for the Kingdom look like? I learned the hard way that in order to thrive, I had to acknowledge that a job was just a job — I needed to be rooted in faith, not my résumé.”
Knowing that she needed a better work-life balance than the agency would offer, Rachel had been applying to other jobs for six months without any offers coming through when she saw a LinkedIn job alert for the Senior Manager of Partnership Marketing – Naming Rights with the Detroit Lions. The description mentioned that an ideal candidate would have extensive social media experience, have worked for an agency, and have worked with automotive companies. Rachel’s résumé uniquely demonstrated that she met all three criteria.
“I looked at the posting a few times before I ever applied,” she says. “But God kept nudging me. My entire career path had led me to be a perfect candidate for a role that felt crafted for me.”
Rachel interviewed in August 2025 and started the first week of November. The transition from mostly remote work to being back in an office was intimidating, especially since she started just a few months into the current NFL season. But Rachel insists that the work itself has already come with a high payoff.
“Growing up a Lions fan, I know how emotional it is to be there as a fan — every time in Ford Field feels like the best day in the world,” Rachel says. “It’s an honor and a privilege to be in this role. It’s amazing to see how God led me back to something and somewhere that had an impact on my childhood.”
The first week on the job, her work schedule conflicted with a prior commitment to serve as a leader for a women’s conference at her church. From the get-go, she was open with her boss and was pleasantly surprised to find that she was accommodating and understanding.
“It can be scary to bring up your faith in non-Christian or corporate work settings,” Rachel acknowledges. “But it’s really important for me to not compromise my priorities just because I’m in a secular environment.”
As an established PR professional, Rachel knows the power of harnessing a brand’s identity to maximize its impact. She’s also developed an awareness that the most important identity she can cultivate is that of a Christ-follower.
“The highlights of my career may look like every transition was easy,” she says, “but I applied to so many jobs (some of which I was overqualified for) that I didn’t get. There were many times that I wrestled with my imposter syndrome. To be honest, I’m still working through that in this job. But I’m trusting that I’m here for a reason and I’m just trying to soak it all in and be present.”
For more information about studying public relations in Olivet’s Department of Communication, visit Olivet.edu/Academics.
