Marilyn Laurie rose to the highest ranks of AT&T in her storied career. As executive vice president of public relations and management, Laurie was the first woman to join the company’s ten-person Executive Committee and counseled the company’s CEO on issues affecting its reputation, while also directing external and internal communications. In addition, she was chair of the AT&T Foundation, overseeing more than $40 million a year in grants to educational, social service and arts institutions.
Laurie’s career began when she saw a notice inviting people to a planning meeting for what would become Earth Day. Her success with that endeavor led to a freelance assignment writing an environmental supplement for the New York Times. AT&T then hired her to create environmental education programs for the company’s employees. After her retirement in 1998, she formed Laurie Consulting, Inc., developing branding and public relations strategies for corporations and non-profit organizations.
Laurie was past president of the Arthur W. Page Society and the PR Seminar, the leading professional associations of the world’s most senior corporate communications executives. She was vice chair of Columbia University, a trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and a director of the New York City Ballet and New Visions for New York’s Public Schools. She had also served on the executive committee of the New York City Partnership.
She received numerous awards, including the Women in Communications Matrix Award, the Tribute to Women in International Industry Award, the Human Relations Award of the American Jewish Committee, and the Women’s Equity Action League Award. She was named to the YWCA Academy of Women Achievers, was among the first named to the National Honor Roll of Women in Public Relations, and was the first woman to receive the Arthur W. Page Society’s Hall of Fame Award (2002).
Laurie received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College and her MBA from Pace University.
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