Young Gun: Skuid’s public relations manager finds niche in corporate story-telling

Twenty-eight-year-old Ellie Hildebrand’s resume says she is PR Manager at the Chattanooga tech start-up company Skuid.

But, truth be told, she embraces other titles, too. Among them: corporate story-teller, geek-speak interpreter, roller-blade enthusiast and mom.

A graduate of North Carolina State University, where she majored in English and international studies, Hildebrand originally thought she wanted to be a diplomat. But an internship at the United States State Department convinced her to look for a more dynamic workplace.

The St. Louis-native soon discovered that the tech start-up landscape needed people with liberal arts training to translate tech jargon into plain English. While living in Durham, North Carolina, she went to work with American Underground, a Google for Entrepreneurs tech hub for some 250 tech startups.

“My job was to tell the story of these start-ups,” she explains. “We worked to get them access to the resources they needed to grow and thrive.”

That wasn’t always as easy as it sounds. Hildebrand said she was intimidated at first by the language of technology. Sometimes cloud-based technology exists in a fog of geek-speak.

“I had a developer friend make me flash cards,” she remembers, laughing. “At first, I was really intimidated, but now, not so much. Those things are easy to learn, you just need someone to tell you what they mean.”

At Skuid, a five-year-old company that specializes in codeless applications for business solutions, Hildebrand is responsible for media and analysts’ relations. Her work generally falls into any of three baskets, she says: touting company milestones, sharing industry news and promoting the company’s thought leadership.

Skuid has grown to about 175 employees, with satellite offices in San Francisco, London and Zurich. But the company maintains its corporate base here. Recent company accolades include being named on the Inc. 5,000 list and the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list.

“It’s been a wild ride,” Hildebrand says of her company’s growth. “I don’t think anyone would disagree that we’ve done amazing work in the last year.”

Three years ago, Hildebrand moved to Chattanooga to marry her husband, Chattanooga-native Jay Hildebrand, a local attorney and private equity fund manager. They have a 15-month-old son, Grigsby, who mom notes “just got his first hair-cut.”

Ellie Hildebrand said that after living in a bigger city – Durham, North Carolina – she was a bit apprehensive at first about moving to Chattanooga.

“I was nervous it might not have everything I wanted,” she recalls. “Now, I think it’s awesome. There is so much cool stuff going on. There are so many people who care about quality place-making.

” It’s a great place to call home. I love the pace of life. I have been amazed at the number of creatives who are here: fine artists, entrepreneurs, grass-roots organizers.”

Hildebrand says she has settled into the corporate world with a resolve she would have once thought impossible.

“For a long time I shied away from the business world, because I didn’t think I could be myself. I thought it would compromise me,” she says.

Hildebrand said she has a valued mentor who convinced her that she could find her best self in any environment.

“He told me, “don’t lean in, don’t lean out, just stand up straight and be proud of the person you are.”