Biography

Charles D. Ellison is Principal & Chief Strategist of B|E Strategy, a 2023 Emerson Collective “Climate Pivot” Fellow, and founding Publisher of theBEnote.com. He is Executive Producer & Host of the widely viewed public affairs podcast Decision Makers. 

Charles directs the Council on Communities of Color at the Council of State Governments and is Founding Head Lecturer for the Civic Literacy and Media Influence Institute at Learn4Life. He sits on the Strategic Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Continuing his work on climate mitigation strategies and policy, he is a Senior Fellow and Advisor at the Smart Surfaces Coalition. He has worked for elected and public officials on the local, state, and federal level.  

A 2024 Reed Awards finalist, Charles also hosts What Happens Next?, a podcast program exploring politics and current events. He’s hosted public affairs programs on SiriusXM and WEAA-FM (Baltimore). Later, he executive produced and hosted a popular daily public affairs program on WURD radio in Philadelphia while creating ecoWURD, the first-ever environmental and climate-focused program featured on a Black-owned broadcast media platform.  

Charles formerly served as National Politics Correspondent for The Philadelphia Tribune, contributing editor to The Philadelphia Citizen, along with columnist roles at The Root and The Grio. He was a recipient of the NAACP’s Leadership 500 Award, a Top 40 Under 40 Washington, D.C. Award recipient and a Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists’ Print Journalist of the Year nominee. His work was recently published in Resilience Matters: Ten Years of Transformative Thinking by Island Press. 

He lives in the D.C. area with his wife Dian, Co-Principal of B|E Strategy, and is the father of three wonderful daughters.