NEW YORK – October 3, 2019 — Page, the premiere global professional organization for senior corporate communications executives, has elected Charlene Wheeless, principal vice president of Global Corporate Affairs at Bechtel Corporation, as its next chair of the Page Board of Trustees. Her term will begin at the start of 2020.
“Charlene is a brilliant leader who will continue to build Page into a global force that strengthens our profession and those in it,” said current Page Chair Aedhmar Hynes. “I look forward to working with her as she leads Page into the future.”
Wheeless has been a member of Page since 2012 and has served as a trustee since 2017. She has been an active leader in Page, most recently as the chair of the 2019 Page Annual Conference in Boston, which was among the most highly rated conferences in Page history. She has also been a frequent and highly rated speaker at Page professional development programs, including the Future Leader’s Experience, Diverse Future and Leaders of Tomorrow.
“I am looking forward to working with the Page Board of Trustees to build on the progress started by Aedhmar Hynes to create the new Page, which will be more diverse, with more actionable and relevant content and more opportunities for members to learn from and engage with each other,” Wheeless said. “These are challenging times for businesses in general, and the need for CCOs to step up has never been greater. Page is an invaluable resource, informing our work as business leaders. We will continue to build Page into a worldwide resource for helping CCOs be the leaders their enterprises need them to be.”
“I’m very grateful to Aedhmar for the incredible progress Page has made under her leadership and look forward to working with Charlene to continue taking Page to the next level,” Page President Roger Bolton said. “She brings deep experience as a CCO and a fresh perspective on how Page can be even more effective in uniting the world’s best communicators to transform business for the better.”
At Bechtel, Wheeless helped strengthen the brand for the historically low-key, high-impact company. Working with executives, the company adopted a more proactive reputation management strategy that relied heavily on communications. Among other things, she and her team ramped up the company’s social media networks to improve engagement with stakeholders and tell the Bechtel story to a wider audience.
Before joining Bechtel in 2009, Charlene served as vice president of communications for the Intelligence and Information Systems business unit of Raytheon Company. Prior to her years with Raytheon, Charlene worked with American Management Systems and DynCorp.