As a seasoned business, marketing, and strategic communication professional, Cynthia Cavendish-Carey has developed a specialty in reputation management and crisis preparedness planning throughout her career. She has a proven track record of building highly differentiated brands for global, national, and regional clients, helping them to effectively navigate and manage business challenges and positively impact the bottom line. Cynthia possesses broad experience with developing unified crisis management plans, tools, and scenario-based crisis readiness tests including tabletop exercises and war games, as well as developing communications for brand protection and reputation management purposes.
Cynthia's background includes senior strategic communication and marketing positions with large financial services companies such as BNY Mellon/Standish Asset Management, FHL Bank Pittsburgh, and U.S. Bank. Additionally, Cynthia has worked with a variety of corporations across other sectors, including sports management marketing ranging from local sports teams to the university levels. Further, she has provided strategic marketing as well as communications for All-Clad, Snyder’s Snack Company, Disruptive Robotics, Blue Belt Technologies, and many more. Her experience has also been brought to bear for non-profit organizations such as the Kelly-Strayhorn Theatre, the Women and Girls Foundation, and Strong Women, Strong Girls.
Throughout her career, Cynthia has built dynamic business, marketing, and strategic communication plans, implementing them successfully to add profitable scale for organic growth. She possesses a keen understanding of the mergers and acquisitions arena and managing organizational change, having led or participated in teams that integrated over $24 billion in assets under management. Her expertise also includes deep experience in analyzing her clients’ competitive landscapes and using this information and research to craft differentiated positions for their markets and businesses.
Cynthia's skills as a communications and marketing professional cover all traditional avenues and new media, including public, media, and community relations; product and service launches; sales and service strategies, training and support; editorial capabilities; advertising and promotions; literature and materials development; conference and event planning; internal and external communications programs; website development and social media. Cynthia has also taught classes and facilitated tabletop crisis exercises for graduate students, helping them to make connections between identifying business and strategic communication risks and being well prepared to effectively manage them.
With this comprehensive background, Cynthia advises domestic and international client partners in strategic communication with an emphasis on crisis communication, internet and media monitoring, media relations, stakeholder engagement, change management, and reputation management. In the area of crisis management, Cynthia helps companies assess and mitigate business risks with a thorough assessment of their crisis management plans, create effective tools and procedures, devise stakeholder-specific internal and external communications, as well as develop and facilitate the critical testing of those plans in order to uncover vulnerabilities and increase crisis readiness.
Over two decades, Cynthia has served on a number of boards and is currently on a PowerLink board for a U.S. national marketing firm. A graduate of The Pennsylvania State University, and an avid reader and gardener, Cynthia is at home in the City of Pittsburgh.
