Chris Foster
Board of Governors Member since 2022
Since June 2021, Chris Foster has been CEO of Omnicom Public Relations Group in New York. He was previously DC-based North American President of advertising and public relations agency Burson Cohn & Wolfe, formed by the merger of Cohn & Wolfe and Burson-Marsteller (of which he was global executive vice president).
Chris Foster is the CEO of Omnicom Public Relations Group, overseeing 15 communications, consulting and public affairs firms within Omnicom. In his role, he is focused on talent, innovation and cross-agency collaboration to drive growth.
Chris previously was the President of North America at BCW Group, responsible for managing growth, talent and client relationships in the region. Prior to the BCW merger, he was the Global Executive Vice President and Chief Business Development Officer for Burson-Marsteller, leading both organic growth and new business development across the global operation. Chris took a break from public relations agencies in 2010 and spent 5 years at the global management consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, where he was Senior Vice President and Partner leading teams and growth across the government and civil business.
He has led national and global public awareness and communications campaigns for organizations such as the U.S Department of Defense, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Social Security Administration, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Amgen and Intel. He specializes in working with the federal government and private companies on understanding reputation risk and leveraging communications analytics to drive enterprise-wide strategy.
Chris serves on the Board of Directors for the Folger Shakespeare Library, The LAGRANT Foundation, The Institute for Public Relations, and the University of Virginia’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. He is also a founding member of the Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA).
In 2022, he was named one of Savoy Magazine’s Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America and was included in PRWeek’s “U.S. Power List” for the second year in a row. Chris been a guest lecturer at Columbia University School of Continuing Studies, the University of Maryland and Western Kentucky University and published his first book, “Reputation Strategy and Analytics in a Hyper-Connected World,” a cross-disciplinary resource for communication and digital professionals alike.
Chris earned an M.S. in Applied Behavioral Counseling from The Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Philosophy from The University of Virginia.