President and Chief Executive at Brand Urbanity
Dr. Debra Brittain (Britt) Davenport is the president and chief executive of Brand Urbanity, a full-service branding and IMC firm with offices in Phoenix and Los Angeles. She has more than 30 years of experience as a senior PR, marketing, and branding executive.
She is also the founder and director of The Davenport Institute LLC, an organizational and leadership development consultancy. The companies provide services to a national and international clientele.
Dr. Davenport has worked extensively on both sides of the PR business – as chief PR counsel and also as a journalist, reporter, TV and radio host, celebrity fashion designer, and media resource. She has been a recurring guest expert on the Dr. Phil show, and has served as the corporate spokesperson for the Panasonic global brand. Dr. Davenport has been featured on FOX Television, Style Network, Yahoo, CBS Money Watch, VH1, KSYY-FM and CNN - and in such publications as Entertainment Weekly, A-List International, Elle, Marie Claire (UK), London Entertainment, In Style, Us Weekly, People StyleWatch, Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. She has been a monthly columnist for Wiley Educational Publishing, and she has previously participated on the scholarly peer review committee for the Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences. Dr. Davenport has also served as a fashion and lifestyle editor for several luxury publications, including Affluent Living Magazine (US), and U Magazine and U Men (Jordan).
Dr. Davenport is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (and Publicists Peer Group), the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society, the Hollywood Radio & TV Society, the Public Relations Society of America, the Institute for Public Relations, the International Special Events Society, and other professional associations. She is represented by IKON Models and Talent in New York City and the Leighton Talent Agency in Scottsdale. She is listed on the Hollywood Celebrity Source roster.
Dr. Davenport’s research interests include branding, memetics, semiotics, media psychology, and the study of PR as a social science. She has served on the WVU faculty since 2007, and the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral faculties of numerous US universities since 1983. She received her BA and MA degrees in Communication Arts from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and her PhD in Education, with a specialization in communication, from the Empresarial University in San José, Costa Rica (NACES US degree equivalency).