Where I learned what I know

Susan MacLaughlin is the Founder of Re-Rooted, an independent advisory firm pioneering a new approach to evaluating and strengthening communications agency relationships through objective diagnostics, strategic insight, and operational transparency.

Over the course of a 20-year career in public relations—including leadership roles at Burson, Edelman, Golin, Ketchum, and MSL, as well as her own independent advisory practice—Susan has worked from nearly every seat at the communications table. She's been an account lead, solo consultant, strategist, crisis counselor, agency executive, and trusted advisor to senior leadership teams. She's also experienced agency life from the ground up, giving her a rare perspective on how decisions made in the boardroom ultimately affect the people delivering the work every day.

Susan understands the agency business inside and out. She's written scopes of work, led new business pitches, built staffing plans, managed budgets, navigated procurement and finance, coached high-performing teams, and delivered strategic communications programs for organizations including BT, Chevron, Citi, CIT, Dow, Direct Energy, Entrust, FedEx, PetSmart, Philips, Regus, SonicWall, Symantec, Verizon, and many others.

Again and again, she saw the same pattern: when agency relationships struggled, organizations lacked an objective way to diagnose what was actually preventing everyone from doing their best work together. Decisions were too often driven by assumptions, frustration, or incomplete information rather than facts.

That insight became the foundation for Re-Rooted.

Today, Susan helps organizations evaluate, manage, and optimize their agency relationships through independent diagnostics that cut through the fluff and uncover hidden risks, operational breakdowns, strategic misalignment, and untapped opportunities for improvement. Her work gives communications leaders, procurement teams, legal departments, and executive stakeholders a clear, fact-based understanding of what's working, what's not, and what to do next.

Known for asking the questions others avoid and identifying the root causes beneath surface-level symptoms, Susan brings equal parts strategic rigor, operational insight, and practical experience to every engagement. She believes the strongest agency partnerships are built on trust, transparency, and accountability—and that when organizations get those fundamentals right, better business outcomes follow.

Susan is based in North Texas and serves on the UT Southwestern Simmons Cancer Center Patient & Family Advisory Council, where she collaborates with patients, families, and healthcare providers to improve the patient and family experience. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and a postgraduate certificate in Artificial Intelligence for Leaders from The University of Texas at Austin, reflecting her commitment to combining deep communications expertise with emerging technologies that are reshaping the profession.