2011 Pub­lic­ity Club of Chicago Life­time Achieve­ment Honoree:

John LaSage

John LaSage has a strong cor­po­rate, issues man­age­ment, cri­sis coun­sel­ing, and corporate/CEO posi­tion­ing background.

Begin­ning his career at Burson-Marsteller as an assis­tant account exec­u­tive, John became pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Burson-Marsteller’s Cen­tral Region in 1990, and Chair­man of the Cen­tral Region in 1998. He pre­vi­ously had been the gen­eral man­ager, Burson-Marsteller Chicago.

John’s three decades of expe­ri­ence include work for major cor­po­ra­tions and insti­tu­tions, includ­ing McDonald’s Cor­po­ra­tion, Abbott Lab­o­ra­to­ries, Quaker Oats, Proc­ter & Gam­ble, John Deere, Kerr-McGee, Amoco, Sears, Accen­ture, CDW, R.R. Don­nel­ley, Mat­tel and Levi Strauss Co. plus var­i­ous pub­lic and edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions. He has coun­seled sev­eral Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cers of major cor­po­ra­tions on rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment and cor­po­rate posi­tion­ing, as well as their own per­sonal posi­tion­ing. His cri­sis expe­ri­ence includes the Tylenol and Pan Am Locker­bie cases, among others.

John serves on the board of the Chicago Pub­lic Library Foun­da­tion, Boys & Girls Club of Chicago, and Spe­cial Children’s Char­i­ties, and he has been an advi­sor to the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois at Chicago, Notre Dame Uni­ver­sity, and the Uni­ver­sity of Michigan.

John has a bach­e­lor of arts degree in jour­nal­ism from the Uni­ver­sity of Michigan.