Peggy Conlon ~ At-Large Board Member

President and Chief Executive Officer

Peggy Conlon joined The Advertising Council in June 1999. As President, Ms. Conlon serves as Chief Executive Officer of an organization that mobilizes yearly more than $1.7 billion of advertising time and space, the creative services of over 50 major advertising agencies, and related financial support from hundreds of corporations.

Ms. Conlon’s has actively supported United Way and its women leadership program in the New York region.  Most notably, the United Way and Ad Council partnered under Ms. Conlon’s leadership in 2005 with the Born Learning early learning ad campaign. Born Learning is a national public engagement campaign helping parents, caregivers and communities create early learning opportunities for young children.  It’s built on awareness, education and action.  Created by United Way, Civitas and The Advertising Council, it includes almost $30 million of donated media – including TV, radio, newspaper, billboard, magazine and Web ads this year – and $7 million worth of education materials.

Since Ms. Conlon joined the Ad Council, the organization has doubled the work produced on behalf of its public service advertising campaigns as well as its operating support. During this time, the Ad Council has secured contracts with many premier government and non profit organizations such as the American Red Cross, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Girl Scouts of the USA, National Urban League, The American Cancer Society, The Department of Homeland Security, The United States Army and many more.

During her tenure as President of the Ad Council, Ms. Conlon has also championed the Ad Council’s important mission among various government agencies and has partnered with both the Clinton and Bush Administrations to use the power of public service advertising in order to improve some of the nation’s most pressing issues. Ms. Conlon organized the Campaign for Freedom, created on behalf of the entire U.S. advertising industry, to address the critical issues resulting from the events of September 11^th and to help Americans respond to the crisis. She also led the organization’s production and distribution of the PSAs featuring former Presidents Bush and Clinton in support of the Tsunami Relief Effort.

Ms. Conlon serves on the Board of Trustees of the United Way of America, the Harvard School of Public Health’ s Health and Social Behavior Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of Partnership for Prevention. Ms. Conlon has also been appointed by former President George Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush to lead the national media initiative for C-Change, formerly the National Dialogue on Cancer and currently serves on its Board of Directors.

Ms. Conlon earned her B.A. in communications from the California State University at Fullerton and her M.A. from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. She also served as a public affairs officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve for seven years. She was awarded the New York Women in Communications Matrix Award for Advertising in 2002.