PR In Healthcare Meeting with Geoff Curtis

By: Sarah Thomas

Geoff Curtis, Co-Founder, Future Voices Collective, joined by Abby Crowe, PRSSA President, and Nicolas Wiles, Ad Club President.

On October 6th, UGA PRSSA was honored to welcome PR industry professional Geoff Curtis to our first October meeting to talk about his experience in the PR world. Curtis is a former C-suite communications executive who has worked at companies such as Horizon Therapeutics, Real Chemistry, Edelman, and GCI Health. He is also a member of the Page Society and a Trustee for the Institute of Public Relations. In June 2026, he launched the Future Voices Collective to help first-generation college students pursuing degrees in public relations network and connect with employers and industries. As a first-generation college student himself, he wanted to use his experience to help students in a similar position.

During this meeting, Curtis discussed his path into the healthcare industry and how he originally ended up working in the field by accident. After interviewing with Edelman, Curtis was told to go into healthcare, which launched his career path. He discussed how healthcare communications differentiated from other fields because of regulations on communication materials and the need to build genuine connections with audiences. At Horizon Therapeutics, the company specialized in rare disorders, which meant they were very aware of target audiences. Although most members of these audiences had been burned by other companies in the past, so for them, forming strong relationships was crucial.

When it came to Healthcare Media Relations, Mr. Curtis gave a great example of how to choose when and where to engage with shifting audiences. To get prescriptions for a medication that fought uncontrolled gout, they installed murals on buildings in high gout areas. To him, this was an incredible example of his belief that storytelling is better than traditional communication. With Media Relations, he has built strong connections with reporters and highlights the importance of these relationships. Curtis gave the chapter an anecdote of a time when he convinced a reporter not to run a story about his company because the issue would soon be resolved.

Finally, Curtis talked about his own struggle with Impostor Syndrome. This is a topic he discusses heavily in his book, Embracing Your Own Purgatory. He states that while he struggled with the idea that there were more qualified people than him, he knew he would outwork them with his dedication. Before opening the floor to general questions, he gave UGA’s PRSSA chapter the advice: “In order to lead a team successfully, you have to understand yourself first. You can’t lead if you don’t know who you are.”

Thank you, Geoff Curtis, for the opportunity to hear from you and learn from your experience as an incredible Public Relations professional. We are grateful to have gained insight from your work in the healthcare industry. We also thank you for passing on your knowledge to the next generation of first-generation PR students through the Future Voices Collective.