Past Events
Sep 13 2009
  • Annual Conference

Speaker Bios

  • Sep 13 - 15, 2009

The 2009 Annual Conference featured thought-provoking presentations by an exciting lineup of sought-after speakers exploring the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Chief Communications Officers during these uncertain times.

  • Clarence Otis Jr. . is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Darden Restaurants, the world’s largest full-service restaurant operating company with annual sales of $7 billion. Otis previously served as Chief financial Officer at Darden. Otis has also held positions with Chemical Securities, Inc., now JP Morgan Securities, Inc., Siebert Municipal Capital Group, The First Boston Corporation and Peabody & Company. A member of the New York Bar Association, Otis earned a Juris Doctor degree from Stanford Law School and worked as a securities attorney in New York City for four years prior to beginning his career in financial services. In April 2007, he was presented with a Horatio Alger Award and inducted as a lifetime member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. Click here for recent media coverage.
  • Doug Parker is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of US Airways Group and has fruitful history in the airline industry. Parker became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer upon the merger of US Airways and America West Airlines in September 2005. Prior to the merger, Parker was Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of America West Holdings Corporation. Prior to joining America West, Parker spent four years with Northwest Airlines as Vice President and Assistant Treasurer, and Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis. From 1986 to 1991, he held a number of financial management positions with American Airlines.
  • Alan Murray is Deputy Managing Editor and Executive Editor, online, for The Wall Street Journal. Murray was previously Assistant Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal and has also served as CNBC’s Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief and as co-host of “Capital Report with Alan Murray and Gloria Borger.” During his tenure as Bureau Chief, the Washington bureau won three Pulitzer Prizes, as well as many other awards. Murray is the author of three best-selling books including “Revolt in the Boardroom, The New Rules of Power in Corporate America,” and “The Wealth of Choices: How the New Economy Puts Power in Your Hands and Money in Your Pocket.”
  • Chris Cramer, Global Editor for multi media at Reuters News, has more than four decades of experience in international broadcasting. Previously with the BBC, Cramer brought together BBC’s large radio and television newsgathering services into a single and powerful operation. At CNN, Cramer helped the organization transition to digital broadcasting. Cramer’s role in noteworthy stories include the Falklands War, both Iraq Gulf Wars, the Lockerbie bombing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Death of the Princess of Wales and most recently, CNN’s coverage of the Asian Tsunami, for which he won a coveted ‘DuPont Award’. His book “Hostage” is his first hand account of the 1980 London Iranian Embassy siege. In 2007 he was honored by NABA with a lifetime achievement award for his services to journalism.
  • John Edwardson is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Committee Member of CDW, a leading provider of technology products and services for business, government and education. Edwardson is responsible for the strategic direction of the company and leading the senior management team. Edwardson has also previously served as Director, President and Chief Operating Officer of UAL Corporation and United Airlines and as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Burns International Services Corporation.
  • Dr. Nancy Snyderman is Chief medical editor at NBC News. Her reports appear on “Today,” “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “Dateline NBC,” MSNBC and MSNBC.com. Previously Snyderman served as Vice President, consumer education for Johnson & Johnson. Snyderman has also served as Medical Correspondent for ABC News for 17 years and has been a contributor for “20/20,” “Primetime,” and “Good Morning America.” Snyderman’s medical work has been widely published in peer review journals and she is the recipient of numerous research grants from the American Cancer Society, the Kellogg Foundation, and the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. She is the author of three books, “Dr Nancy Snyderman’s Guide to Good Health for Women Over Forty,” “Necessary Journeys,” and “Girl in the Mirror: Mothers and Daughters in the Years of Adolescence.” She also writes a monthly column for “Good Housekeeping” magazine.
  • Simon Walker is Chief Executive of the BVCA, the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association. He was formerly Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing at Reuters. Prior to Reuters, Walker was Communications Secretary to HM The Queen at Buckingham Palace. He was previously Director of Corporate Affairs at British Airways and has also served as special adviser in the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street. Simon was also a Partner at Brunswick, the public relations group, and Director of European Public Affairs for Hill & Knowlton in Brussels. He was a member of the Better Regulation Commission and is a Trustee of the New Zealand-UK Link Foundation, and the Hillary Summit.
  • Dr. Sian Leah Beilock is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Chicago. Dr. Beilock investigates why high powered and highly trained people sometimes “choke under pressure” and explores the psychological strategies that can alleviate suboptimal performance under stress. Dr. Beilock’s research is routinely covered in the media including CNN, The New York Times, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal. She was selected as one of four “Rising Stars” across all academic disciplines by the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2005. Her book “Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Success and Failure at Work and at Play” will be published in 2010 (Simon & Schuster – Free Press).
  • Tim Johns is Vice-President of Corporate Communications for Unilever, responsible for media relations, internal communications, and category communications globally. A public relations professional for almost twenty years, he was previously Director of Media Relations for British Telecom, and prior to that appointment held senior communications roles at the retail chain, Sainsbury’s and at Homebase.
  • Chris Galvin serves as Co-founder/Chairman, Harrison Street Capital LLC, a private equity entity, and Co-founder/General Partner Harrison Street Real Estate Capital LLC, a real estate private equity company. He served Motorola Inc. for over 36 years. In global affairs, Galvin was China’s largest foreign investor (among all corporations in the world) when at Motorola Inc., and partnered with the Clinton Administration in Global Trade to open the Japanese domestic market to the sale of non-Japanese manufactured cell phones. Since departing Motorola in 2004, Galvin chaired the spin-out of NAVTEQ from Philips in 2004, helping to form its outside Board; and co-founded the following: a think tank in 2004 that published three books in 2008, a global Harvard endowment-like investment business, a real estate private equity company, and a software productivity business.
  • Jon Iwata is Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications at IBM Corporation and Vice Chairman of the IBM International Foundation. This global team manages an integrated system that encompasses market insights, demand generation for IBM products and services, communications and corporate affairs, workforce enablement, and stewardship of the IBM brand, recognized as one of the most valuable in the world. Iwata is a member of the IBM Operating Team, responsible for day-to-day marketplace execution, and the IBM Strategy Team, which focuses on long-term issues and opportunities. Iwata was appointed Vice President of Corporate Communications in 1995, Senior Vice President, Communications, in 2002, and assumed his current role on July 1, 2008. He is co-inventor of a U.S. patent for advanced semiconductor lithography technology.
  • Kathleen Fitzgerald is responsible for leading internal and external communications for KPMG in the United States (KPMG LLP) and for KPMG International, the global network of KPMG member firms as Global Head of Communications, Chief communications Officer. Prior to joining KPMG in August 2006, Fitzgerald served as Senior Vice President of public relations and advertising for Lucent Technologies. She was instrumental in developing the original brand positioning for Lucent, and launched a number of communications programs that helped the company become one of Fortune magazine’s top 10 “Most Admired Companies” in 2000 and one of the “Best Companies to Work For” by Fortune in 1999.
  • Nick Ashooh became Senior Vice President – Communications, for American International Group, the leading international insurance organization, in September 2006. He previously served as Vice President of Corporate Communications for American Electric Power; Vice President, Communications and Government Relations at Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. in Syracuse, N.Y.; and Vice President – Corporate Communications for Paramount Communications Inc. Ashooh also directed corporate communications for Public Service of New Hampshire, the state’s largest utility. He was active in all aspects of corporate communications during the licensing and construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant and during Public Service’s bankruptcy filing and reorganization.
  • Steve Harris is currently the head of Global Communications at General Motors, Vice President, Global Communications. Harris has spent more than 40 years in communications, the vast majority of it with U.S. auto manufacturers. His recognitions include the IPR Alexander Hamilton Medal for lifetime contributions to professional public relations and the SABRE Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Public Relations. In 2007, he was inducted into the Arthur W. Page Society’s Hall of Fame and for the eighth time, named an Automotive News’ All Star for automotive public relations. The Detroit Chapter of the PRSA named him to their Hall of Fame in 2002 and he has also received awards from Inside PR for crisis management and the University of Southern California’s Outstanding Journalism Alumni award.
  • Sandra Macleod is Chief Executive of leading global research firm, Echo Research, and has more than 25 years of experience in communications and reputation analysis and evaluation. Sandra is cited among the 100 most influential people in PR in the last 21 years, Sandra is the first international Board Member and Trustee of the Institute of Public Relations (USA), a Fellow of the Institute of Public Relations (UK), Freeman of the City of London Guild of Public Relations, Member of the Market Research Society, Editorial Advisor to the Corporate Communications Journal, and Companion of the Chartered Institute of Management. She has also served as Board Member of the DTI’s Business Links and is on the Board of the Finance and Performance Review Committee of the Prince of Wales’ International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF).
  • Rick Santelli joined CNBC Business News as On-Air Editor in June 1999, reporting live from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. His focus is primarily on interest rates, foreign exchange, and the Federal Reserve. He joined CNBC from the Institutional Financial Futures and Options at Sanwa Futures, L.L.C. There, he was a Vice President handling institutional trading and hedge accounts for a variety of futures related products. Prior to that, Santelli worked as Vice President of Institutional Futures and Options at Rand Financial Services, Inc., served as Managing Director at the Derivative Products Group of Geldermann, Inc., and was Vice President in charge of Interest Rate Futures and Options at the Chicago Board of Trade for Drexel, Burnham, Lambert. Santelli began his career in 1979 as a trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a variety of markets including gold, lumber, CD’s, T-bills, foreign currencies and livestock.