Global relations
Venkatachari Jagannathan
06 April 2003
Chennai: David Drobis is the senior partner and chairman of Ketchum (www.ketchum.com), a top ten global public relations firm. He joined Ketchum in 1967 as an account executive in the firm's Pittsburgh office after working in government relations and community relations in the Washington, DC area, and in university relations at The American University in Washington.
Drobis has spent most of his career at Ketchum helping it to grow from a small, *specialised firm into one of the top agencies in the world. Under his leadership, Ketchum expanded from North America to Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America and established the vertical industry categories and key communications disciplines into six global practices: brand marketing, corporate, food and nutrition, healthcare, technology and Ketchum Inside (workplace and change communications). Under his guidance Ketchum established an industry leading recruitment and training program and also introduced KGN, an award-winning intranet.
Drobis holds a master's degree in journalism and public relations from The American University in Washington, DC and has attended graduate programmes at The Harvard Business School and The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania.
He is an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), a past board member of PRSA's counsellors' academy, a member of its international committee, college of fellows and past president of the New York Chapter of PRSA. He was named among the top ten most influential people in public relations in the 20th century by PRWeek and was presented with the National Public Relations Professional Achievement Award for 2001 from Ball State University.
He is president of The Arthur W Page Society; founding chairman and a member of the Board of the Council of Public Relations Firms and the current president of International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO), the international trade association for public relations firms. He's also a member of the International Public Relations Association and the advisory committee of the American University School of Communication. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Center for Communication, an organisation dedicated to communications education, and The Manhattan Theatre Club, a New York based non-profit theatre company.
