Director of PR
Makena Riendeau
Makena has a gift for finding the angle — the one that gets a client's story into the right hands, at the right publication, at the right moment.
Fun Fact
Certified Beer Server - Cicerone® Certification Program
Favorite Quote
"If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?" – T.S. Eliot
Hometown
Raleigh, NC
MEET OUR TEAM
Every brand has a story and it’s Makena’s passion to both refine that story and identify the right people to tell it.
Makena has turned a love for literature and journalism into a multi-faceted career in public relations. Before joining The Brand Leader, Makena spent eight years working in New York City, first for Edelman - a global PR firm - and then in-house for Anheuser-Busch overseeing communications for Beyond Beer, CSR, and ultimately several brands in the Craft Beer portfolio.
She and her husband moved to Asheville in 2022 and since then Makena has built her own public relations business working with clients across the beverage and lifestyle space - serving as a fractional PR partner, overhauling strategy, and leading media relations from the ground up. She’s passionate about amplifying work that has earned its place in the conversation - landing coverage across top-tier publications and local staples.
Above all, Makena is a storyteller at heart — one who finds genuine joy in seeing a client's product land in the hands of the right journalist and end up in the right headline. She's always reading, always tracking media trends, and always finding new angles for her clients to show up in the world.
Outside of work, you can find her at a concert, trying out a new restaurant with her husband, on a flight to somewhere exciting, at the playground with her toddler, or running on the trails around her Asheville, NC home with her dog Elvis.
