About
Senior counsel on every engagement.
Iris Advisory provides strategic counsel across corporate and institutional communications, media relations, executive communications, reputation and issues management, thought leadership, and milestone initiatives — for organizations in moments of growth, change, and heightened visibility.
Amanda Thiebaud Horn, APR
Founder & Principal, Iris Advisory LLC
Strategic communications, media relations, executive advisory
A strategic, award-winning communications executive with more than twenty years of experience transforming brands, elevating visibility, and navigating change across corporate, nonprofit, arts, retail, and aerospace sectors.
Accredited in Public Relations, Amanda partners with founders, executives, and leadership teams during moments of growth, transformation, and market entry — where reputation, strategy, and business outcomes intersect. Before founding her consultancy she held senior communications leadership roles at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary, guiding high-profile initiatives through periods of institutional growth and change.
Today she advises innovation platforms, mission-driven organizations, foundations, and economic development engines. Her global work includes leading media operations for UP.Summit, launching international art projects into the desert and into low-Earth orbit, and guiding communications for Virgin Orbit through its public listing. Whether launching a rocket into Times Square, managing communications during a natural disaster, or amplifying the voice of a cultural institution, the approach is grounded in empathy, informed by data, and driven by results.
Sectors
Arts & culture
Aerospace & innovation
Philanthropy & foundations
Economic development
Higher education
Retail & corporate
Selected work
Crystal Bridges Museum
The Momentary
Virgin Orbit
UP.Summit
Walton Family Foundation
Northwest Arkansas Council
Bentonville Film Festival
Orion Capital Partners
Gregg Museum of Art & Design
7 Minute AI
Credentials
APR accredited
20+ years in practice
Award-winning campaigns
Our story
How Iris Advisory started.
Draft — replace with the real thing. The strongest version of this section names the moment you decided to do this on your own terms: what you kept seeing inside larger organizations, what you thought could be done better, and the first client who proved you were right.
Then the shape of the firm today: Iris Advisory LLC operates as a small core with senior counsel on every engagement, and a trusted roster of writers, media trainers, researchers, and designers who join per project. Clients get the right people rather than the available ones.
Why Iris
The name.
In Greek myth, Iris was the messenger who carried word between worlds and was trusted on both ends of the journey — which is, on a good day, the job.
The name earns itself twice more. The iris of the eye is what adjusts to available light — the clear, deep, intuitive read on a complicated situation, which is what clients are actually hiring when they call.
And Iris is my daughter. Building something with her name on it means working with consciousness — doing well by doing good, choosing clients and counsel we would defend out loud, and leaving the world she will inherit a little better than we found it. That is not a tagline. It is the filter every engagement goes through.
The team
Who you actually work with.
Every engagement is led by senior counsel and staffed with practitioners we have worked with for years. Draft — tell me which roles you draw on most and I will adjust this list, and name any colleagues you want credited by name.
Writers & editors
Bylines, reports, and long-form that sounds like the client.
Media trainers
On-camera and on-the-record practice before it counts.
Research & monitoring
Landscape reads, message testing, coverage analysis.
Design & production
Decks, press materials, and video when a story needs it.