Experience That Informs Strategy.
Relationships That Move Issues Forward.
EWR Management Group has been working in Virginia since 2008. Today we are a public affairs firm, helping businesses and organizations build the government relationships, community support and advocacy strategies they need to move important issues forward. EWR’s two longest-standing clients have been with the firm since the year it was founded.
Our roots are in Hampton Roads, where two decades of work across business, government and civic organizations built the relationships the firm runs on. When an engagement calls for expertise we do not carry in house, we bring in trusted partners rather than stretch to cover it.
2008
Established in Virginia
2 Terms
Elected Office
18 Years
Longest Client Relationship
The EWR Advantage
We Staff to the Issue
Shannon leads every engagement, working with EWR’s specialists in communications, production and research, and with partner firms when a project needs outside expertise. Senior attention, without a large firm’s overhead.
We Map Before We Move
Before recommending a strategy, we identify the decision-makers, the people who influence them, and where the opposition will come from. Good positions lose all the time because nobody did that work before the first meeting.
We Scope What's Needed
From focused advisory support to a full advocacy campaign, engagements are sized to the issue rather than to a standard package. Nothing gets padded to fill a retainer.
We Work the Calendar
Issues have dates: a hearing, a session, a comment period, a vote. We build backward from the one that matters, because being right too late is the same as being wrong.
A Perspective Shaped by Experience
Shannon Kane
Founder & Principal, EWR Management Group
Former Virginia Beach City Councilmember
Shannon Kane founded EWR Management Group in 2008 and leads the firm’s public affairs practice. She served two terms on Virginia Beach City Council, voting on land use, budget and economic development matters and working directly with residents, civic leagues and the business community. During that time she served on the executive committee of the Virginia Municipal League, building relationships with local government leaders across the Commonwealth. She later ran for the Virginia House of Delegates.
Her public affairs work has included grassroots and regulatory advocacy campaigns in energy, healthcare and statewide ballot issues, much of it as the Hampton Roads connection to a national public affairs firm. EWR’s engagements have also included a multi-year contract managing Entrepreneurs’ Organization of Southeast Virginia which built lasting relationships across the regional business community.
Shannon serves as a gubernatorial appointee to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s Business Development and Marketing Committee and on the executive committee of the Hampton Roads Workforce Council, where she chairs the Youth Services Committee. In addition, she serves on the fundraising campaign cabinet for the Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation. During her Council service she chaired the Hurricane Matthew Long Term Recovery effort and served as liaison to the Minority Business Council and the Human Rights Commission.
Shannon also founded C5 Merchant Solutions, a merchant services brokerage, which gives EWR direct operating experience in the payments industry and informs its work on payments and fintech policy. She began her career in nonprofit fundraising and development, and holds a degree in communication and public relations from James Madison University.
One thing I learned during my time in elected office is that the most effective advocacy starts long before a decision is made. It starts with understanding the issue, building relationships and bringing the right people into the conversation.
That is still how we work. We spend the early part of an engagement on the issue and the people around it, because a strategy is only as good as what it is built on. And we tell clients what we actually think, including the times the honest answer is that they can handle it themselves.
-Shannon Kane, Founder and Principal