FROM RADIO TO PUBLIC RELATIONS, SOUTH SUBURBAN RESIDENT SHARES HER STORY OF STRUGGLE AND SUCCESS

Media professional Denise Jordan Walker (pictured) is a long time resident of Chicago’s south suburbs and recently opened up to share her story with the Chicago Citizen Newspaper. Photo Credit: Provided by Denise Jordan Walker
Media professional Denise Jordan Walker (pictured) is a long time resident of Chicago’s south suburbs and recently opened up to share her story with the Chicago Citizen Newspaper. Photo Credit: Provided by Denise Jordan Walker

FROM RADIO TO PUBLIC RELATIONS, SOUTH SUBURBAN RESIDENT SHARES HER STORY OF STRUGGLE AND SUCCESS

BY KATHERINE NEWMAN

Denise Jordan Walker is the founder of Candid Public Relations and a well-known former smooth jazz radio host in Chicago. Over the last few decades, Walker has built a long list of celebrity clients and developed an impeccable ear for jazz music.

Walker got her start as the spokesperson for Fashion Fair Cosmetics with Johnson Publishing Company, a Chicago based company known for publishing Ebony Magazine and Jet Magazine.

Eventually, Walker was hired as a radio host for WNUA 95.5 FM which was a popular smooth jazz radio station based in Chicago.

“I got hired at WNUA and I was there for a long time. I was hired at WNUA before I got married and I actually got married on the air and listeners got a chance to decide if I should be Denise Jordan, or Denise Walker, or Denise Jordan Walker and everybody loved Denise Jordan Walker. That was in 1989 when I got married and I stayed at WNUA for years until I was offered a position at V103,” said Walker.

Walker inevitably took the job at V103, a competing radio station in Chicago, after they gave her an offer she couldn’t refuse, even though she loved her job and colleagues at WNUA.

“It was just devastating to me because WNUA was the best place ever. Literarily the best place that I have ever worked in my life and we were like a family but I made the decision because at the time, the money they were offering me was crazy,” said Walker.

As a result of her decision to accept a position at a competing radio station WNUA enacted a non-compete clause on Walker and made it so she could not begin working at V103 for a year after leaving WNUA.

“Before I got to V103, WNUA somehow found out about it and they slapped a no-compete clause on me so that meant that I couldn’t work in radio anywhere else for up to a year. I

was totally shocked,” said Walker. Little did she know, this seemingly life-shattering event would lead her to a successful career in public relations. The same night that Walker was released from WNUA and learned that she could not begin working at V103 for a year was the same night she met Bernie Mac who would become her first celebrity client as a public relations specialist.

“The day WNUA let me go was the day I met Bernie and then next day here I was working for Bernie and on the payroll,” said Walker.

Today, Walker has a long list of clients including the Chicago Bulls, The Walter Payton Foundation, The Hadiya Pendleton Foundation, Bernie Mac, Billy Dee Williams, Al Roker, Maysa, The Harlem Globetrotters, John Travolta, Al Richard Simmons, and many more.

Through the years of struggle and success, Walker has remained a resident of Chicago’s south suburbs.

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