Kirill Goncharenko

Kirill Goncharenko is President and a Founding Partner of Mercury - an industry-leading high-stakes public strategy firm. In that capacity, he leads a team of high-level and bipartisan public affairs experts and government relations professionals in seven offices throughout the United States, including New York City, Washington, and Sacramento, as well as a bipartisan network of over 500 political and grassroots operatives in all 50 states. In only a decade, Kirill helped take Mercury from a small Manhattan-based political affairs shop to a leading global public affairs and government relations firm. In 2003, Mercury was acquired by Omnicom Group, the world’s leading advertising, marketing and communications holding company. Kirill offers clients experience born of years of involvement in business, politics and government. In government, he was an advisor on communications and international relations matters in the United States Senate. In business, he served as a Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for a $3 billion healthcare company with 65,000 employees and as an Executive Vice President of global crisis communications at Burson-Marsteller, a leading global public relations firm. In politics, he served as a senior campaign advisor to a sitting U.S. Senator and has also held high-level campaign positions in races for President, Governor and Congress, as well as initiative and referendum. Specific to public affairs, Kirill’s extensive corporate background, coupled with a foundation in electoral politics and government, allows him to devise cutting-edge public affairs campaigns that achieve specific business results for his many global clients, including many leading Fortune 500 companies, industry trade associations and not-for-profit organizations. In addition, Kirill has provided senior counsel to corporations under the spotlight of some of the highest profile crises of the past 15 years. In fact, he is a frequent speaker on crisis management at executive conferences, including the Forbes CEO Forum. Kirill received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York and is fluent in Russian. He resides in Manhattan with his wife Yulia, son Sasha and daughter Katya.