Gene Grabowski
Partner
Kglobal
@crisisguru
@kglobaldc

Gene Grabowski is a distinguished crisis communications counselor and former journalist with more than 30 years’ experience managing high-profile crises of all kinds for global companies, trade associations and non-profit organizations.

Grabowski has been named PR News’ Crisis Manager of the Year for his work on national spinach and lettuce recalls, North American pet food recalls and global lead-paint toy recalls. He has also represented the Kuwaiti detainees in Guantanamo and baseball great Roger Clemens. More recently, Grabowski directed communications for the sweeping national ice cream recalls of Blue Bell ice cream.

All told, Grabowski has managed communications for more than 160 food and drug recalls in his career.

Before joining kglobal as a Partner, Grabowski served 11 years as Executive Vice President at LEVICK, a litigation communications and crisis firm based in Washington, DC, where his clients included many food and agribusiness companies and more than a dozen trade associations.

Grabowski also was Vice President of Communications and Marketing for the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the world’s largest food trade organization representing brand-name food, beverage and consumer-product companies. In addition to developing and implementing GMA’s media outreach programs, he was the organization’s chief communications strategist, spokesperson and liaison with industry analysts. He led the industry’s strategic efforts on biotech, childhood obesity and global food safety in North America and Europe.

Prior to his work at GMA, Grabowski served as a Director in the Washington office of Burson-Marsteller, where he developed and managed national advocacy and media relations campaigns for agencies of the federal government, major universities and leading global corporations, including Perrier, Motorola, Sun Microsystems and Johnson & Johnson.

A former White House news reporter for the Associated Press and The Washington Times, Grabowski covered global arms summits in the United States and Russia between President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, the federal budget proceedings and international trade relations.

Grabowski is a Pittsburgh native who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing and History at the University of Pittsburgh, and who has done graduate work in Management at the University of Michigan.

Grabowski is a member of the board of ISS USA and a mentor in the Washington, DC College Bound program for the city’s high-school students. An avid chess player, he holds a rating with the U.S. Chess Federation.