Patti Webster (June 18, 1964 – September 13, 2013) was an American entertainment publicist, author, and minister. As the CEO of W&W Public Relations, a company she founded in 1991, Webster represented notable recording artists, athletes, and actors, including
Janet Jackson
Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and dancer. She is noted for her innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows. Her sound and choreog ...
,
Alicia Keys,
Usher
Usher may refer to:
Several jobs which originally involved directing people and ensuring people are in the correct place:
* Usher (occupation)
** Church usher
** Wedding usher, one of the male attendants to the groom in a wedding ceremony
** Fiel ...
,
Halle Berry
Halle Maria Berry (; born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant and coming in sixth in the Mis ...
,
Chris Paul and
Holly Robinson Peete.
Early life and education
Born in
, Webster majored in engineering and operations research at
Virginia Tech. After a series of summer internships, Webster decided not to pursue a career in engineering. Moving to Maryland, she took a job in 1985 as a marketing and publicity assistant at
BET, then a fledgling network. In 1988, Webster moved to New York.
Career
Public relations
In New York, Webster worked at several entertainment-related companies, eventually working as an assistant at
Jive Records
Jive Records was an American independent record label founded by Clive Calder in 1981 as a subsidiary to the Zomba Group. In the US, the label had offices in New York City and Chicago. Jive was best known for its successes with hip hop, R&B, an ...
where she "fell in love with publicity." Subsequently, she was hired by
Rogers & Cowan; during her three-year tenure at the company, she worked with
Quincy Jones’
Qwest Records,
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
,
Julio Iglesias,
Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan (; born Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García; born 1 September 1957) is a Cuban-American singer, actress, and businesswoman. Estefan is a seven-time Grammy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and has been ...
,
Diana Ross
Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. She rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups o ...
and
Celine Dion. In 1991, Webster founded W&W, a public relations agency focused on representing African-Americans, signing her first client,
Stephanie Mills
Stephanie Dorthea Mills (born March 22, 1957) is an American singer and songwriter. She rose to stardom as "Dorothy" in the original seven-time Tony Award winning Broadway run of the musical ''The Wiz'' from 1974 to 1979. The song " Home" from t ...
, shortly thereafter.
By 2013, Webster had built W&W into a highly respected and influential public relations agency,
representing celebrities in a wide variety of fields, including
Patti LaBelle
Patricia Louise Holte (born May 24, 1944), known professionally as Patti LaBelle, is an American R&B singer, actress and businesswoman.
LaBelle is referred to as the " Godmother of Soul".
She began her career in the early 1960s as lead singe ...
,
BeBe
Bebe, Bèbè, Bebé, Bébé or BeBe may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Bebe (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname
* Bebé, footballer Tiago Manuel Dias Correia (born 1990)
* Bebé (f ...
and
CeCe Winans,
Ludacris,
Kelly Rowland,
Dwight Howard, and
Steve Harvey, as well as organizations including Creflo Dollar Ministries and
BMI.
In 2008, ''
Ebony'' honored Webster with an Outstanding Women in Communications award.
Author, minister, and community service
Despite her success as a publicist, Webster said that her real job was to spread the word of
Jesus Christ.
Raised in a family of clergy – her father, mother, great-grandmother, grandmother, and grandfather were pastors – Webster authored the book ''It Happened in Church: Stories of Humor from the Pulpit to The Pews'' in 2008. A collection of humorous stories from friends, pastors and celebrities, Webster said "I think that if God created laughter, it isn't to be excluded from church. I think laughter is to be everywhere."
Webster was ordained as a minister in 2011 and served as a
deaconess at Shiloh Pentecostal Church in Somerville, New Jersey, where she grew up.
She served as a member of the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), on the boards of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and the TReach (Therapies Reaching & Educating Autistic Children) Foundation, and on the
Make-A-Wish Foundation's Marketing Mavericks team.
Webster died of cancer at a hospital in Somerville on September 13, 2013.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Webster, Patti
1964 births
2013 deaths
American public relations people
Women Christian clergy
Deaconesses
African-American women writers
African-American writers
American writers
Virginia Tech alumni
Writers from New Jersey
People from Somerville, New Jersey
African-American company founders
American women business executives
American business executives
American women company founders
20th-century African-American people
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American women
21st-century African-American women