Lexicon Strategies has added two more partners to its growing team of expert strategists: R. Jackson Kelly and Rachel Tobin. Kelly is an investor relations and marketing executive with international marketing and entrepreneurial expertise and a record of persuasive influence with investors, analysts and C-suite executives. Tobin is a media relations strategist with seven years of experience at a public relations agency and 13 years as a journalist.

The pair joins the strategic marketing, communications and public relations consulting firm led by Brian Tolleson, founder of advertainment studio BARK BARK, and Billy Linville, a public affairs strategist. Last year, the firm added former Emmy Award-winning political reporter Lori Geary, former Cumberland CID executive director Malaika Rivers and former Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Molly Bloom.

“We’re pioneering a model where all of our clients benefit from the counsel of senior executives who are widely recognized in their fields." said Tolleson. “And, we're excited to support companies and organizations who want to create a positive community impact and participate authentically in the exciting growth in Metro Atlanta and around the South."

Kelly has 30 years of broad and progressive experience driving significant achievements in strategic leadership, marketing leadership, global growth, finance and entrepreneurship.  Kelly is a six-year Chief Investor Relations Officer who partnered directly with the CEO, CFO and Board of Directors at The Coca-Cola Company. There, he built a world-class investor relations function while participating at the highest level in strategic initiatives, such as the acquisitions of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Glacéau (the maker of Vitaminwater). He was recognized by Institutional Investor magazine as the Best Investor Relations Officer in consumer goods/beverages for six years straight.

Since retiring early from Coca-Cola in 2016, Kelly has worked with multiple startup and enterprise companies, both as the Founder of RJK Consultancy, a private equity firm, and as a member of the Board of Advisors at MobiJuce, an innovative mobile technology-marketing sharing startup based in Hong Kong.

Kelly began his career as an accountant in the Audit Division at Arthur Andersen & Co. in Washington, D.C. Kelly is a Certified Public Accountant who has an MBA in International Marketing from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a B.S. with honors in Accounting and Economics from Washington and Lee University. Kelly is a member of the AICPA, the Virginia Society of CPAs and Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK); holds real estate licenses in California and Georgia; and is active with several nonprofits.

Tobin is a seasoned journalist and communications professional who has worked with the leading publications, corporations and nonprofits in the Southeast and nationally. She spent seven years with communications agency Jackson Spalding, where she led the national media relations and commercial real estate teams. There, she handled CEO transitions, business crises, media trainings, influencer events as well as coordinated ground breakings, topping out and grand opening ceremonies. She represented a celebrity chef, tourist destinations, a major law firm, regional bank and national consulting firm, an economic development agency, global nonprofits and commercial real estate firms.

Previously, Tobin was a journalist for 13 years, covering business for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and for Atlanta Business Chronicle and politics for Georgia’s largest legal daily, the Fulton County Daily Report. She won five Capital Reporter and Editor awards. She started her career as a legislative aide at Atlanta City Council.

Tobin is an alumna of Urban Land Institute’s Center for Leadership, past president of the Atlanta Press Club and a past board member of Central Atlanta Progress and Georgia State’s Rialto Center for the Arts. She’s currently on the board of Real Estate Group of Atlanta and president of her condo association board in Midtown Atlanta. She earned her undergraduate degree summa cum laude in political science/international affairs at the University of California, San Diego, and her master’s degree in communications at Georgia State University. She spent two years studying abroad and is fluent in Spanish, French and Portuguese.