2011 Instructional Team

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2011 Instructional Team

The instructional team for the December 14-15, 2011 Public Relations Leadership Forum includes a unique blend of leading practitioners and academics including:

  • Bruce K. Berger, Ph.D., is Professor and Chairman, Department of Advertising and Public Relations, College of Communication, University of Alabama where he also serves as Director of the Betsy Plank Center for Public Relations Studies. Noted as one of the world’s leading experts on organizational communication. Formerly worked more than 20 years in corporate communications and has held public relations executive positions with Upjohn Company and Whirlpool Corporation. He is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Public Relations.
  • Harold Burson, the Founder and Chairman of Burson-Marsteller was named by PR Week as the most influential public relations figure of the 20th Century. As the architect of the largest public relations agency in the world today, he started practicing the concept of integrated marketing decades before the term was even invented. His personal counsel has enlightened the thinking of boardrooms at many Fortune 100 companies throughout the globe. He is a Founding Member of the Arthur W. Page Society and a former Trustee and long-time supporter of the Institute for Public Relations.
  • Gary Grates is President and Global Managing Director of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement, the strategic organizational communications practice of Edelman, the largest independent public relations firm in the world and the third largest overall. He has over 20 years of corporate, marketing/brand, labor, merger/acquisition and strategic communications experience in change management/employee (internal) communications. He previously was Senior Advisor – Strategic Communications Policy at General Motors Corporation after serving three years as GM’s Vice President-Communications North America.
  • Frank Ovaitt, President & CEO, Institute for Public Relations, an independent foundation based at the University of Florida and focused on research that is immediately applicable in communications practice. Prior to his current position at IPR he was Executive Vice President and head of research services with the public relations firm Makovsky & Company and previously held corporate positions with AT&T, MCI and the BTM Corporation. He is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society.
  • David Rockland is Partner and CEO of Ketchum Pleon Change and Managing Director of Global Research with Ketchum. He enjoys an international reputation as one of the leading lights in communications research, measurement and evaluation and is a past chair of the IPR Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation and is the current head of the US Section of the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation in Communications (AMEC).
  • Elliot Schreiber is Clinical Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Corporate Reputation and Management in the Bennett S. LeBow College of Business at Drexel University in Philadelphia. In addition to a distinguished career in academia including faculty appointments at bjusiness schools in both the US and Canada, he has extensive experience working full-time in corporate communications and was the chief communications officer at Bayer in the United States and Nortel in Canada.
  • Kirk Stewart is Executive Vice President and leader of APCO Worldwide’s corporate communication practice and has more than 30 years of experience in public relations and public affairs. He plays a leading role in serving APCO’s corporate clients and helping broaden and expand the firm’s corporate communication practice. He previously was Global Vice President of Corporate Communications for Nike, Inc., and prior to that was Chairman of the global public relations firm Manning, Selvage & Lee.
  • Donald K. Wright is the Harold Burson Professor and Chair in Public Relations at Boston University’s College of Communication, the world’s first degree-granting institution in public relations. He is one of the world’s most published public relations scholars, serves on the Boards of Trustees of both the Institute for Public Relations and the Arthur W. Page Society, and is an IPR Research Fellow. Prior to entering the academic world, he held a variety of corporate and agency positions in public relations and has been an active consultant for several decades.

Inquiries

Dr. Don Wright, Harold Burson Professor and Chair in Public Relations, College of Communication, Boston University
DonaldKWright@aol.com (Tel: +1-617-306-4006)

Jenn Moyer, Foundation Operations Manager, Institute for Public Relations
JMoyer@jou.ufl.edu (Tel: +1-352-392-0280)