Contributors
Rebecca Canan
Rebecca is a CEC research consultant and has been on the team since 2004. During this time, Rebecca has spent much of her time studying, teaching, and living social media. Her favorite moments at work are when she sees members applying something smart they’ve learned from us or when she has a good laugh. When she’s not researching, she’s reading about wine, writing on her personal blog about wine, or visiting wineries to drink more wine.
Dana Clifford
Trying to benchmark your team? Dana can help with a diagnostic for that. Looking to improve the communications skills of your managers? Dana can build you a training for that. Trying to improve your online newsroom or better differentiate your brand? Dana can show you the step-by-step process for that. When not being CEC’s nimble analyst, Dana enjoys any and everything active and outdoorsy (it’s the Colorado native in her), indulging in the DC restaurant scene with good friends, and succumbing to her travel bug on the weekends.
Evelyn Ostrovsky
As a senior research analyst and data whiz, Evelyn leads CEC's benchmarking initiatives and is the team's trusted source for Excel support. By day, she also contributes to Discussions updates, edits surveys with a ruthless hand, and determines root causes for member problems. When not arguing about the difference between brand and reputation, Evelyn can be found riding her 20-year-old road bike on the mean streets of D.C., perusing farmers markets, practicing Portuguese, watching the Food Network, and planning her wedding.
Jonathan Grieb
Jonathan's passion for Communications stems from his unique accent that consistently confounds audiences he addresses on topics like social media, employee engagement, and corporate branding. When not extolling the virtues of "communicators as enablers," Jonathan enjoys talking about the weather in Chicago, Thanksgiving, and squash. His other favorite blogs pale in comparison to the CEC Insider but (fwiw) include Gizmodo, The Bleacher Report, and Jerks in Your Area.
Kayleigh O’Keefe
Kayleigh is a Renaissance analyst who likes to dip her toes into a variety of CEC projects. At the moment, she is psyched to moderate the CEC Intranets Working Group and hopes that you share your advice with the group. In her free time, Kayleigh enjoys 6-miler Saturday Soul Searching Strolls around D.C. where she explores the National Gallery of Art, sips divine coffee at Sidamo, attends D.C. United soccer games, and ponders internal social media while listening to carefully crafted iPod play lists. If you’re planning a trip to the nation’s capital, she’s happy to share her rigorous walking itineraries.
Laura Newman
Laura joins the CEC as an Executive Advisor, translating the latest research insights into usable tips and tricks for our European membership base. A French and American dual-national, Laura grew up primarily in Budapest, currently lives in London, and is a Duke Blue Devil at heart. She enjoys dreaming about a world where corporate social responsibility isn’t a “responsibility” but rather an inherent part of successful and profitable business.
Mike Wellman
Mike is an Advisory Services Associate with the CEC, currently responsible for consulting with members on topics ranging from branding and employee engagement all the way to translation management processes and PowerPoint presentation theory. Ask him anything, but be wary, because he'll probably try to convince you to talk about the New York Yankees instead! Mike likes to spend his free time exploring new music on LaLa, continuing his quest to find the best Massaman curry in DC, tweeting for CEC, and dreaming of the next time he'll make it to the U.K. to catch a football match at Craven Cottage stadium.
Vanessa North
As CEC’s research director, Vanessa likes to think Big Thoughts about the future of the Communications function. At the moment, she’s preoccupied by the role of social media in shaping stakeholder opinions and the related opportunities for Comms to create business value. Whenever possible, Vanessa likes to take her musings to far-flung parts of the globe and is always looking for the next adventure. In her London home base, she satisfies her wanderlust with a lot of trips to the theatre, talks, gigs, and pottering in flea markets.
Rick DeLisi
Rick specializes in traveling the globe to share CEC’s research with communicators in the US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia and South Africa. (His travel schedule is so extreme, he literally puts the “freak” in frequent flyer!) Prior to joining CEC, Rick worked for more than 10 years as a Director of Corporate Communications and Media Relations in the airline and hospitality industries.
Scott Christofferson
Scott oversees the Communications Executive Council and one of our sister programs, the Market Research Executive Board. He divides his time between new research initiatives and engaging our member executives in group meetings and one-on-one discussions. Outside of work, he is devoted to his wife, two young boys, and newborn daughter (born in December 2009). Prior to joining the Corporate Executive Board, Scott spent 8 years as a consultant with McKinsey & Company and 2 years in Africa with the U.S. Peace Corps.