Trust Relations CEO & Founder April White Wins Second Consecutive Stevie Award

April White’s mission — since the day she founded Trust Relations in 2019 — has been to reinvent the PR industry from the ground up. She was (to put it bluntly) fed up with the old way of doing things: the toxic standard practices that drive good communicators out of the profession, the ineffective strategies that hamper brands in sharing their otherwise world-changing stories, the lack of a future-proof vision for more integrated and measurable marketing programs. April founded Trust Relations with an emphasis on ethical practices, considerate culture, and better client and career outcomes. 

On Friday, November 11, 2023, she was recognized for that vision — and the work she has put into actualizing it —  at the 20th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business in New York City. April was named as the Silver winner in the category of “Maverick of the Year – Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations.” 

This comes just one year after April took home the Gold for  “Most Innovative Woman of the Year – Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations” at last year’s event dedicated to recognizing the world’s preeminent executives, entrepreneurs and thought leaders. With this most recent honor, April continues to prove herself and her agency to be leading disruptors of industry standards for the best PR agencies and for the entire profession. Following the award ceremony earlier this month, she said: 

“To my fellow finalists and winners from the 20th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, I extend a joyous congratulations! We are changing the world, either by being ‘in the room where it happens’ or by building that room from its very foundation! It was so humbling to look around the room at this year’s ceremony and to see, in-person, what I am so proud to know every other day of the year — that I am sharing the table with the other innovators, disruptors and noise-makers who will make tomorrow brighter than today.

To receive this award in any circumstance would be an incredible personal accomplishment — but to have received the honor of this Silver award just one year after receiving a Gold award is both immensely humbling to me and a profound testament to the depth of my passion for making the PR profession better. Receiving this honor tonight only reinforces my drive to make ‘public relations’ a thing of the past, so that ‘trust relations’ can become the new norm of the future.”

During her red carpet interview at the event venue, April thanked her colleagues at Trust Relations, her professional mentors, and her close circle of family and friends for their continued support throughout her professional journey.

Entrants for “Maverick of the Year” were evaluated by a cohort of more than 200 professionals worldwide and finalists and winners were selected according to highest average scores. April was ultimately selected for the Silver award, under the Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations subcategory, for her outstanding professional achievements between July 2021 – July 2022. Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of winners in all categories are available here.

In 2022, April also received the Gold Stevie Award for “Most Innovative Woman of the Year – Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations” at the 19th iteration of the annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, just three years after she founded Trust Relations in 2019. Her goal in creating the agency was to retire the traditional agency structures and protocols that have historically contributed to toxic workplace cultures and poor client service. Based on nearly two decades of her experience working for the biggest and best PR agencies in the world, April designed Trust Relations to be the first fully remote strategic communications and integrated marketing agency with an emphasis on unlocking maximum value for businesses, facilitating greater mentorship for communications professionals, and empowering brands to achieve alignment between their storytelling and “story-doing.”