President, CEO and Founder
Denise Bentele, APR, is founder, president and CEO of Common Ground Public Relations, one of the St. Louis region’s most respected independent public relations firms. She leads the agency’s strategic direction, oversees client service and mentors a team of communications professionals dedicated to helping organizations build trust, protect reputations and achieve meaningful business results.
With more than three decades of experience, Denise serves as a senior strategic advisor to executives, boards of directors and leadership teams across healthcare, higher education, economic development, professional services, nonprofit organizations and technology. Her expertise includes reputation management, crisis communications, executive thought leadership, stakeholder engagement, media relations and strategic communications planning.
Denise is widely recognized for helping organizations navigate high stakes issues with clarity and confidence. She has counseled leaders through mergers and acquisitions, public policy debates, executive transitions, organizational change, litigation, labor issues, product recalls, environmental incidents, cyber events, campus emergencies, public policy debates and other complex reputation challenges affecting public and private organizations. She received the prestigious Public Relations Society of America’s Silver Anvil Award for crisis communications on behalf of a major national health system.
As the communications landscape continues to evolve, Denise helps organizations strengthen their visibility and credibility by integrating earned media, owned content, executive thought leadership and digital communications into cohesive strategies that support both traditional audiences and AI-powered search and discovery. She is a frequent speaker and trainer on reputation management, crisis communications, media relations, executive thought leadership and the evolving role of AI in public relations.
Accredited in Public Relations (APR), Denise is a past president and ethics chair of the St. Louis chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and is a member of PRSA’s Counselors Academy.
She serves on the board of Provident Behavioral Health and has held several leadership and volunteer roles with her church, Woodlawn Chapel, and community organizations dedicated to education and the welfare of women and children.
She earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri.