We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Whitney Popa a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Whitney, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The more we talk about good leadership the more we think good leadership practices will spread and so we’d love for you to tell us a story about the best boss you’ve had and what they were like or what they did that was so great?

The best boss I ever had was not only an incredible writer, but a wonderfully decent human. I was young in my career when I worked for him at a global PR agency, and because I respected his writing chops so much, I toiled to deliver my best work every time he gave me an assignment. He was patient, kind, and clear with his feedback, and generous with his praise. When my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, and I had to be at the hospital with him while he had surgery, our HR department called me to ask me how I wanted to code my time off. In that moment, I had no idea how I wanted to code my time off, so I asked my boss. He was so astounded by HR asking me about time coding that he marched down the hall and told them all what for. I didn’t know I wanted or needed an advocate, and in that moment, he taught me that we’re allowed to be fully human—to love each other well—at work. I never forgot him for it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I own a boutique communications consultancy based in Edmonds, WA, that focuses mostly on long-form content: websites, blogs, articles, and newsletters. My team and I work with founder-forward businesses that want to connect to their clients and customers through story. We’ll write a website for a client, and then we’ll also help them learn how to pitch their services in ways that don’t feel gross. We believe that relationships are at the core of all businesses, so we’re always looking for ways to bring people together to learn about each other—beyond words on a screen or in a tri-fold brochure.

Most of our clients come to us because of how much personality we add to our writing. We write like we talk, we’re not afraid of a strategic emoji, and we certainly are no strangers to a pop culture pun.

I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been able to create work and flexibility for other talented writers, and that we’ve been able to show our clients how much fun they can have with their communications. The best thing our clients say to us is that they feel SEEN and like the people coming to them already kinda know them.

On the side, I’ve been growing my publishing company! I wrote and published a short booklet about grief in 2024, a picture book written by my 8-year-old son in 2025, and I am just about to publish my first picture book this spring about strong moms and the daughters who are always watching them. I believe walking my talk is important, so putting my stories and creative work into the world has been a nice little boon to my communications business.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I am a former corporate social media manager, so I have a few tips and tricks I’ve employed to grow my “personal brand,” as it were. I am a storyteller, and finding the best ways for me to tell stories on social media took a bit of trial and error (I am not into loud, flashy, or super-short videos as a creator). I started going to small businesses I love, shooting b-roll, and editing that into informational reels and TikToks. A few have taken off, which makes me so happy because it means more eyeballs on businesses that are working so hard every day and operating within tight margins. I also love a carousel post (give me allll the quiet corners of the internet), so I’ll create those, too—it really just depends on what kind of story I want to tell and what form I want that to take. At the end of the day, when I feel excited about what I’m creating, and I can say yes to the questions I ask myself about it (“Is it helpful? Is it beautiful?”), I know it’ll probably perform well. The more visible I am, too, the more people can get to know me and how my team and I help business owners.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I built my reputation by consistently showing up and being earnest. It probably sounds corny, but I just care SO much about helping other business owners + giving my team work that fuels us all. I give a lot of my time and learnings away for free. I treat every relationship like a partnership and have often fangirled or talked about my clients online before they ever became clients—with no expectation of them becoming clients.

Alternatively, clients reach out when they see how we talk about businesses like theirs. I’ve also been told that I’m able to help the people we touch feel more fully expressed—there really are no rules, so writing online in a way that you think you “should” while sacrificing your authenticity is not something we do. We help our clients move from how they think everyone else wants them to sound (or how they see someone else talk) to who they are and how they care to communicate. That shift can be really powerful, and it’s helped us establish ourselves as a personality-driven writing team with a reputation for truly loving PNW-based businesses.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://popaandassociates.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/whitpopa
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/whitneypopa

Image Credits

Franchesca Hall (Hall Visuals), Hailey Aitkins (Nota Lux), Bronwen Houck