Don Baer is Worldwide Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Burson-Marsteller, a WPP, Inc. company that is one of the world’s largest strategic communications businesses. Baer took on the role in 2012, when he also became Chair of Burson-Marsteller’s sister research firm Penn Schoen Berland. Baer has been a member of Burson-Marsteller’s global senior management team since 2008 and has led major client engagements in every sector and part of the world. In 2011, he became Co-founder/Chair of Palisades Media Ventures, a public affairs and news media content development company co-owned with WPP.
Baer’s career has spanned leading roles as a media and communications executive for important business, government and non-profit organizations, and he has played a significant role in American politics and policy for the last two decades. He has had extensive strategic, creative and operational experience at top-tier public- and private-sector organizations including the White House and major global companies.
From 1998 to 2007, Baer helped lead global media company Discovery Communications. As Senior Executive Vice President for Strategy and Development and an executive committee member, he drove significant growth in Discovery’s online offerings, including acquisitions of digital businesses and the launch of its first mobile video services, and oversaw the Discovery/New York Times Company joint venture in the Discovery Times Channel.
From 1994-98, Baer was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, serving as Assistant to the President and White House Director of Strategic Planning and Communications and, before that, as Chief Speechwriter/Director of Speechwriting and Research.
From 1985-93, Baer was a journalist. For seven years, at U.S. News & World Report, he covered politics and the White House and, as an assistant managing editor, oversaw national and international coverage. He also worked at The American Lawyer, has written for publications including The New York Times and POLITICO, was a CBS News on-air analyst and has appeared on many TV news shows. Since 2000, he has been a writer of the annual Kennedy Center Honors TV production, winning two Writers Guild of America awards.
In the for-profit sector, Baer serves on the Board of Directors of Meredith Corporation and digital start-up Fora.tv. In the non-profit sector, he is Chair of the Board of Directors of PBS, the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service, and on the Boards of The Urban Institute and The News Literacy Project. Baer is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Reuters Editorial Advisory Board. In 2013, he was inducted into the North Carolina Halls of Fame in Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations.
Baer received a B.A. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Phi Beta Kappa), a Master’s in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a J.D. from The University of Virginia School of Law. He and his wife, Nancy Bard, have two sons and live in Washington, D.C.