Biography

Gus Carlson has been helping major global public companies build, manage and protect their value for more than three decades. After a successful career as an award-winning national business journalist with top-tier U.S. newspapers, Gus moved to the corporate world, where he developed specialties in issues management and crisis communications, brand strategy and positioning, executive leadership communications, employee engagement, and media and investor relations. He is now a consultant to corporations and organizations around the world. Gus’ experience includes more than a decade as Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Thomson Corporation and Thomson Reuters, where he oversaw communications for Thomson’s $17 billion acquisition of Reuters PLC in 2008 and the development and worldwide launch of the Thomson Reuters brand, which is ranked among the world’s most valuable. Gus has also held senior communications positions at Accenture, Standard & Poor’s, Barnes and Noble.com, PaineWebber and Hill and Knowlton. Gus’ journalism background includes positions as a business news editor at The New York Times and as a business editor and columnist at The Miami Herald, where he was a member of the editorial team awarded the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for coverage of Hurricane Andrew and its aftermath in 1992. He is a U.S.-based business columnist and former director for The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. Gus is a founding director of the Council for Economic Resilience, a D.C-based advocacy group promoting the future of autonomy and automation. He is a member of the Advisory Council of Etico Financial, a New York-based registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, merchant bank and portfolio manager. An avid offshore sailor, he is a former president and director of The National Sailing Hall of Fame and The Sailing Museum in Newport, R.I.  He is an author on issues and crisis management, media bias and corporate culture, and lectures at colleges — including URI — on media and communications issues.