Wilhelm Meierling

Bill Meierling: Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, External Relations and Strategic Partnerships. A creative and innovative strategist entrusted by high profile leaders and organizations—over 15 years—to direct issue campaigns, lead message development and manage crisis planning and response while driving transformational change and delivering global business results. He has led public affairs, political and marketing campaigns at every level—U.S. local, state and federal, and internationally on four continents. With the Exchange Council, Bill established and grew the public affairs and membership divisions as new initiatives for the nation’s largest organization of state and local elected officials. He leads complex, multi-state issue advocacy and legislator engagement campaigns that limit regulation and ensure business license to operate. In this role, Bill manages crisis response and provides senior level counsel to investor-, government-, and public relations divisions of Fortune 500 member companies regarding state and federal advocacy; environmental, social and governance (ESG) activism; and other concerns. Prior to the American Legislative Exchange Council, Bill spent nearly a decade managing multicultural community relations and international expansion strategies for United Way Worldwide and Edelman Public Relations clients. At United Way, Bill was the first worldwide head of public relations for the 41-country, 1,800-chapter organization ranked by Forbes 26th most valuable global brand (behind Verizon and ahead of Nintendo). For Edelman Public Relations, Bill led multicultural engagement campaigns and community initiatives for Fortune 50 companies and several leading U.S. trade associations in the consumer, energy, technology, and healthcare sectors. Prior to Edelman, Bill was a founding partner in OpinionMakers International, a boutique public relations and campaign consultancy focused on Latin-American and Sub-Saharan African issues. From 2010 – 2016, Bill taught state government affairs, issue and crisis management and multicultural communication at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. An avid writer, Bill’s work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Hill, among other leading outlets.