Edelman Change and Employee Engagement
The organizational communications consulting practice of Edelman

"When you are serious about change"

Gary Grates is President and Global Managing Director of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement, the strategic organizational communications practice of Edelman, the largest independent public relations firm in the world and the third largest overall.

He has over 20 years of corporate, marketing/brand, labor, merger/acquisition and strategic communications experience with a particular expertise in change management/ employee (internal) communications. Grates has counseled a number of national and global organizations including: General Motors, Volvo, Caterpillar, Shell, Carrier, Novartis, Mellon Bank, Mobil, AstraZeneca, Visa International, British Airways, BASF, Coca-Cola, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Denver Newspaper Agency, Kerr-McGee, Schering-Plough, ITT and Dell.

Prior to joining Edelman, Grates served as Senior Advisor – Strategic Communications Policy at General Motors Corporation (GM), after serving as the automaker’s Vice President-Communications North America from 2002-2004.  While at GM, Grates was responsible for brand, product, media, internal, financial and public policy communications for GM’s North America Region, the largest in the company.  He was also the global process leader for internal communications and a member of General Motors' North American Strategy Board, the senior most governing body in North America.

A frequent lecturer and author on issues facing corporate management and communications professionals, Grates has been referred to as the “thought leader” in change management communications and effective employee-management relations. He has been involved with change management/re-engineering assignments for major organizations such as Coca-Cola, Novartis, BASF/Mobil, British Airways, Canteen, Himont and Dell.  Grates, a 1981 graduate of Utica College of Syracuse University, began his career at the Rome Cable Corporation, Rome, N.Y., where he managed corporate, marketing and employee communications.

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