Audra Capas, president and founder of 5StarPR, LLC, has more than two decades of experience in financial communications, public affairs and new media spanning the corporate, nonprofit and legislative sectors.

Over the course of her career, she has helped launch successful IPOs, established corporate branding and Internet strategies, orchestrated global news and special events, counseled CEOs on ways to keep employees motivated during mega-restructurings, headed corporate investor relations and news operations and assisted national advocacy groups in championing a variety of policy issues.

Before launching 5StarPR in 2001, she served for nearly five years as vice president of communications for The Real Estate Roundtable, commercial real estate's equivalent of the Business Roundtable. As part of her role, Audra led a variety of industry-wide communications teams on such major policy campaigns as fair telecom access to buildings and more efficient securitization of commercial mortgages for sale into the capital markets. She also established the association's first extranet.

Audra was also vice president of communications for the CoStar Group, where she headed the company's PR, online news and investor relations operations.

Earlier, she directed the media relations, publications, employee communications and special events functions at Freddie Mac, one of America's largest secondary mortgage market companies. During her tenure, she helped take the company public, was instrumental in repositioning its image as a blue-chip investment with investors and the media, and established strategies that enabled senior management to communicate priority business information accurately, consistently and easily with multiple audiences.

She also served as a legislative assistant to several Members of Congress and was director of public affairs for a national coastal governors' association.

Audra has won numerous distinctions for communications excellence, including gold awards for annual report writing and design from the International Academy of Communication Arts & Sciences and the International Association of Business Communicators.

She is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute, the National Press Club, the Public Relations Society of America, the North American Association of Independent Public Relations Agencies, and Meeting Planners International. Audra is also a co-founder of the Washington-based Independent Public Relations Alliance.