Today we’d like to introduce you to Khaner Walker
Hi Khaner, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Growing up, my parents worked for the airlines so we moved around — a LOT! I came to Raleigh for NC State and realized when I got here, I didn’t want to live anywhere else. When I proposed to my now wife, I asked her something along the lines of would she make this city our home together which is exactly what we did! Nearly 12 years later we have two kids in school, two local businesses, and no intention of leaving.
Throughout my 21 years here, I’ve been doing some form of communications in Raleigh and around the Triangle. “What does a ‘career in communications’ actually look like?” you might be thinking? Glad you asked! I’ve been a reporter at the NC General Assembly, led global communications teams at Lenovo, and very recently, started my own PR agency, ArcSense Communications.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely a lot of twisting roads along the way! While an incredibly rewarding experience, life kicked into high gear when I was traveling a lot for work, getting my MBA from Kenan-Flagler’s evening program, and getting engaged/married. There were years where I got off a plane from China, went to class for three hours, and repeated that process.
When COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan, I was part of a small team who led one of the world’s first responses to what would eventually become a global pandemic (Lenovo employs 10,000+ people in Wuhan). Two to three evening calls a week turned into 4-6 calls a night and the stress had a huge impact on my health. That stress continued when all of us were locked in our homes and we had a one-year-old and two-year-old at home while my wife and I were both working.
Through it all the thing that kept us going was leaning on each other and leaning on our community in Raleigh.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about ArcSense Communications?
ArcSense has been an idea of mine since MBA school. It’s taken 10 years for me to launch, but I honestly wasn’t ready to do so until 2024. I bring my experience of how companies work, knowing what it takes to hit revenue and profit targets, and how clients who hire agencies like to be treated!
What we do? ArcSense is a communications agency that helps businesses understand what purposefully telling their story can do for the company. Sometimes that’s public relations / connecting directly with reporters, sometimes that’s rewriting the way they talk about themselves on their website, brochures, and social media, and so much more!
I’m most proud that we’ve doubled our number of clients nearly every month since opening. We started with two clients in June. That number became four in July, which became eight in August!
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
While AI is having a huge impact in the way communicators write and create, it’s already having significant implications on the way the general public consumes information.
We’re already seeing normal search traffic move to AI-powered searches. This means the people making those searches are seeing new and different kinds of results, so companies need to start rethinking what’s written (or not written) about them on the web, what type of things they should be talking about, and in what type of formats.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.arcsenseconsulting.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arcsense_comms
