Bio

Christopher J. Tennyson
Senior Vice President and Partner
Fleishman Hillard Inc.

Chris Tennyson brings more than 30 years of corporate and agency experience to his work as a senior vice president in Fleishman-Hillard’s Special Situations Group in New York. He has provided crisis communications counsel to leaders in diverse consumer, leisure, entertainment, sports, banking, manufacturing, service, real estate, public-sector, and healthcare industries.

Mr. Tennyson specializes in the areas of strategic communications counsel, crisis communications assessments and preparedness planning, litigation support, regulatory issues, and financial relations.

Before joining Fleishman-Hillard in 2006, Mr. Tennyson was a principal in a Detroit-based public relations firm, provided crisis communications counsel on dozens of high-profile takeover battles, legal challenges, civil rights disputes, referendums, accidents, and corporate controversies. Prior to that he served for 15 years as senior vice president, corporate affairs, for The Taubman Company, a $5 billion investment and real estate development company. Taubman’s international holdings included Taubman Centers, Sotheby’s Holdings (NYSE:BID), the quick-serve restaurant chain A&W Restaurants, the regional department store Woodward and Lothrop, and the Michigan Panthers of the United States Football League. He led the communications components of the Sotheby’s and Taubman Centers IPOs and coordinated the company’s efforts to secure development approvals for new real estate projects in communities across the nation.

Mr. Tennyson began his public relations career with the international public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. As a vice president in the company’s New York office, he directed H&K’s issues advertising unit and supervised a broad range of programs for such respected brands and organizations as Procter & Gamble, Consolidated Edison, Rockefeller Center, Inc., Benneton, Monsanto AstroTurf, ITT Grinnell, Oberlin College, IBM (personal computer launch), Russell Reynolds Associates, the Louisville Development Committee, the Shrine of North America, and the U.S. Olympic Committee.

After graduating from Syracuse University, Mr. Tennyson taught English and American history and was the varsity lacrosse coach at Cheshire Academy, a prep school in Cheshire, Connecticut. He also served in the communications and development office of the University of Hartford. Mr. Tennyson currently serves on the Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences Board of Visitors and the Cheshire Academy Board of Trustees.

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