Judith T. Phair, public relations and communications executive, has extensive experience in strategic planning, branding, worldwide public relations and marketing, media relations, fund raising, and government relations.

From 2006 to 2010, she served as vice president, communications, for the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), an association of 182 top graduate business schools around the world. GMAC is the owner and administrator of the GMAT examination. Judy led the Council’s worldwide strategic communications planning and oversaw advertising, media relations, and print/electronic communications activities. She headed a major branding initiative for GMAC and the GMAT as well as the redesign of the GMAC website, and implemented extensive international media relations and advertising campaigns, with a special focus on European and Asian markets.

In 2002, Judy founded her own public relations and marketing agency, PhairAdvantage Communications, LLC, and has now resumed a full-time focus on PhairAdvantage. Her clients have included the University of Southern California, Bucknell University, Drexel University, Johns Hopkins University, University System of Maryland, and the National Association for College Admission Counseling, among others.

Previously, she was vice president for public affairs at the Council on Competitiveness, a nonpartisan, nonprofit association of corporate chief executives, university presidents, and labor leaders; vice president for institutional advancement at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute; assistant dean of external relations at the School of Professional Studies, Johns Hopkins University; and vice president for public relations at Goucher College. She has been an adjunct faculty member at Goucher College and Towson University.

Judy was 2005 President and CEO of the 31,000-member Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the largest organization of public relations professionals in the world. She is a frequent speaker on public relations and marketing issues, and she has written extensively in the field. Judy recently received PRSA’s highest individual award, the Gold Anvil. Considered the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award, it is given to the individual “whose work has significantly advanced the profession and has set high standards for those engaged in the practice of public relations.” She has won numerous other awards in public relations, marketing, and crisis communications.