Senior Vice President and Group Marketing and Communications Director
Willis Group Holdings

Valerie Di Maria is Senior Vice President and Group Marketing and Communications Director for Willis Group Holdings Limited (NYSE:WSH), the global insurance broker. Di Maria leads worldwide marketing, brand and reputation management, executive communications, media relations, employee communications, government affairs, community relations, corporate philanthropy, and events. She also is a member of the company's senior leadership team, the Partners Group.

Having held both corporate and agency positions, Di Maria has significant experience in corporate, consumer and business-to-business public relations and marketing. Previously, she was Corporate Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs for Motorola, the global telecommunications leader. Prior to Motorola, she was Vice President of Corporate Public Relations and Advertising at GE Capital, the international financial services company owned by General Electric.

Before joining GE, Di Maria was President of the New York headquarters of Grey Advertising's international public relations agency, GCI, and Vice Chairman of the GCI Group. During her time there, she helped the firm break into the top 10 global list of PR agencies for the first time. At GCI, she managed corporate and marketing work for Westinghouse/CBS; IBM; M&M/Mars, 3M and the International Olympics Committee.

She joined GCI from Omnicom's Porter Novelli public relations where she was Senior Vice President/Group Supervisor and ran the consumer marketing practice.

Di Maria has earned several awards including two Silver Anvils from PRSA, two Big Apple awards, and a CIPRA award for work with such clients as Kraft/General Foods, SkyTel, and SmithKline Beecham. She was named one of the "Ten Top Women in PR", one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in PR" and a "tech industry key player" by PR Week, and previously recognized as one of the "Ten Agency All-Stars" by Inside PR.

As one of the leaders in the public relations field, she was influential in starting the Council for PR Firms, the first trade association for the industry, and currently sits on its Client Advisory Board. She is a board member of the Arthur W. Page Society, a premier organization of chief communications officers of major corporations, and a former board member of British American Business, Inc. Di Maria is also a member of PR Seminar, the Wisemen, and is past-president of Women Executives in Public Relations.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from New York University.