Gainesville, Fla. – The Institute for Public Relations is thrilled to announce the addition of three new Trustees to its Board:
Christine Elliott
Chief Corporate Affairs Officer
Moody’s Corporation
Christine Elliott is Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Moody’s Corporation. She serves as a member of Moody’s Executive Leadership Team. In this role, Christine is responsible for leading a team focused on evolving, advancing, and fortifying the Moody’s brand with key global stakeholders, including customers, employees, policymakers, regulators, and the media. Her team encompasses Communications and Brand Management, Corporate Social Responsibility (including The Moody’s Foundation), as well as Government, Public and Regulatory Affairs. The Global Corporate Affairs function aligns Moody’s internal and external voice, brand, and relationships to deepen understanding of the company’s unique value proposition as a global integrated risk assessment firm in addressing corporate, financial, and economic challenges.
Christine joined Moody’s in 2021 as a Managing Director and Global Head of Communications and Branding. Prior to Moody’s, she was Executive Vice President, Worldwide Communications at Mastercard and Chief Communications Officer at S&P Global. She has also held senior communications roles at American Express, including as Chief Communications Officer for American Express Global Business Travel. Earlier in her career she was a journalist for ABC News, where she earned an Emmy award.
Christine earned a B.A. in Communications and Political Science from the University of Michigan.
Trity Pourbahrami
Communications Officer, Science Program
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Trity Pourbahrami is a boundary spanner with over 15 years of international experience in strategic communications, science communication, and employee engagement encompassing the higher education, government, philanthropic, and corporate sectors. She is a strategic leader with a proven track record of effectively engaging diverse groups and supporting organizations as well as their stakeholders with transformational efforts. These efforts include implementing principles of equity and inclusion to bring about more diversity in science and engineering. She is passionate about building trust and using co-production of knowledge approaches to overcome barriers and solve problems. As a seasoned facilitator and mediator, she has extensive experience handling complex and sensitive situations involving multiple constituencies and requiring diplomacy.
Currently she leads communications for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s science program which advances the understanding of emerging scientific fields through developing new technologies, supporting imaginative research scientists, and creating new collaborations at the frontiers of traditional scientific disciplines. Before joining the foundation, she was director of communications at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a world-renowned science and engineering institute. In this role she led the communications office of Caltech’s largest academic division and collaborated on communications efforts across all six Caltech divisions and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She also designed and taught an innovative graduate course in effective science and engineering communication which led to the establishment of the first science and engineering communications academic program at Caltech. In addition, she was the editor of the award-winning publication ENGenious.
Trity earned her Bachelor of Science degrees in physics and physiology from the University of British Columbia and her master’s degree in social welfare and public administration from the University of Hawai’i. She serves on a number of leadership bodies locally, nationally and internationally to increase diversity, equity, justice, and inclusion in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields.
Jane Slusark
Head of Communications
Principal Financial Group
Jane Slusark is the Head of Global Communications at Principal Financial Group, a Fortune 250 financial services leader in asset management, retirement, and insurance. In her role, she leads the company’s strategic approach across external, employee, executive, and reputation communications. She has significant experience and expertise in crisis management, mergers and acquisitions, and global media relations. Current passion projects include the development of brand-building, purpose-driven thought leadership and the articulation and activation of a compelling employment brand. Prior to Principal, Jane held communications leadership positions in agriculture, government, and financial services. She has her Master’s of Public Administration from Drake University and Bachelor’s in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Iowa.
About the Institute for Public Relations
Founded in 1956, the Institute for Public Relations is an independent, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the science beneath the art of public relations.™ IPR creates, curates, and promotes research and initiatives that empower professionals with actionable insights and intelligence they can put to immediate use. IPR predicts and analyzes global factors transforming the profession, and amplifies and engages the professional globally through thought leadership and programming. All research is available free at www.instituteforpr.org and provides the basis for IPR’s professional conferences and events.
Media Contact:
Brittany Higginbotham
Communications Associate
brittany@instituteforpr.org
