Jennifer Appel

Born and raised in sunny South Florida, Jen Appel received her Bachelors in Communications and Culture from Indiana University. While at IU, Appel gained real-life experience as a member of PRSSA and spent her summers working at local South Florida PR firms assisting with all things event development and publicity outreach. After graduating, Jen opted to continue her education at Barry University to receive a Masters in Corporate Communications and Public Relations. Throughout her tenure at Barry University, Jen worked for local PR firm, Zucker PR where she assisted on National PR campaigns: Harley Davidson, W Hotel Fort Lauderdale, and local automotive group, Craig Zinn Automotives, to name a few. It was her passion to work events, garner local media attention, and assist with the creative aspect of campaigns. This passion led Appel to take a position at Chase Marketing Group as the Head of Social Media assisting local and national non-profit organizations. Throughout her time at Chase, Appel was able to increase awareness of the South Florida Silver Knight Awards, an organization that awards excelled high school students with a scholarship to their college of choice. It was during this time that Appel wanted to take her love for PR and social media and apply ii to the music world. Having grown up in a musical family and dabbling in music throughout middle school and high school, Appel quickly realized this was exactly where she needed to be.

Beginning her time in the industry, Appel landed a job at a local entertainment start up firm, First Class Alliance as the Publicity Director assisting with up and coming Urban, Hip Hop, R&B, and Rap artists. Throughout her time at FCA, Appel was able to garner attention from some of the top urban sites Global Grind, Hip Hop DX, and WorldStar to name a few. Appel assisted with all facets of each artist campaign working alongside the marketing department, social media team, graphic design/web development team, sponsorship/branding/licensing, and digital departments. Quickly adapting to the fast-paced environment, Appel realized this was exactly where she needed to be. After some time at FCA, Appel chose to branch out and explore the developmental portion of an artist career, helping them during the initial steps to hone in on who they are as an artist, their branding elements, and how to shape them for success.

Appel branched out and in 2012 opened her own boutique PR firm, The Catalyst Publicity Group. With a passion for helping others and watching musicians live out their dream, Appel crafted a home for emerging artists to take chances, explore who they are as an artist, and develop the right branding/imaging for their style. Entering year five of The Catalyst Publicity Group, Appel has seen success working with over 400+ artists of all genres, she has fine-tuned creative marketing/PR strategies so emerging acts find success in their career and even more so has watched artists grow in to successful musicians. While staying true to the mission of Catalyst, Appel has been fortunate enough to work with some well-established acts like John Schneider, Boys Like Girls, Cartel, The Spill Canvas, and Our Last Night to name a few to offer exclusive campaigns with a more hands on approach to expand their brand and offer creativity to their project. Appel has been fortunate enough to speak at Driven Music Conference [Fort Lauderdale & Atlanta] (2013, 2014, 2015), Launch Music Conference [Lancaster, PA] (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), Johnson & Whales – Guest Lecture and SEE Conference [Miami, FL] (2014, 2015, 2016), South by South West [Austin, TX] (2015, 2016), Music Biz Conference [Nashville, TN] (2016), Millersville University Entrepreneurial Leadership Conference (2016), and Indiana University (2016).