Michael O’Brien, President, General Manager, Cohn & Wolfe New York
Michael O’Brien is the leader of the agency’s largest office and corporate headquarters in New York. His expertise includes corporate reputation programs, brand marketing and issues management. He also serves as a senior counselor to several of the agency’s clients including Ford, Panasonic and American Express.
Prior to joining C&W, Michael headed Brand Marketing at Ketchum New York. Some of the accounts under his direct leadership included the Eastman Kodak Company, Visa USA, the Chrysler Group, Absolut Spirits Company, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Consumer (Listerine) and Tropicana. He also served as Global Director of the Kodak business building and managing a network of 17 office teams in North America, Europe and Asia. During his tenure, Michael’s teams won every major public relations industry award including four Silver Anvils and the PRSA NY Big Apple “Best of Show” on behalf of Kodak. In addition, Michael provided senior counsel to Ketchum’s brand practice network as Associate Director of the Global Practice.
Michael was previously the Director of Global Communications at MasterCard International. In this position Michael managed communications strategy and implementation for consumer credit, business payments and e-commerce products. He launched more then 20 MasterCard products, often partnering with member financial institutions to create integrated national and international programs.
Michael also worked in the consumer/business to business and healthcare groups of Ogilvy Public Relations where he played a key role on accounts such as Glaxo SmithKline, Duracell International and the Principal Financial Group. O’Brien began his career at the advertising agency D’Arcy Masius Benton and Bowles serving as an editor and media relations specialist.
He received a B.A. in Communications from Marist College. He is currently a member of the school’s advisory committee to the School of Communications.