Noted PR communications leader Ari Fleischer will serve as keynote speaker at the 2010 CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco

Noted PR communications leader Ari Fleischer will serve as keynote speaker at the 2010 CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco

Note:
Read more on Ari Fleischer's work with professional and amateur sports: Ari Fleischer, From the Briefing Room to the Locker Room, by Zach Berman, Washington Post Staff Writer (Wednesday, July 22, 2009)

Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary (2001-03) and noted sports communications executive, will address the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) membership as keynote speaker at the upcoming 2010 CoSIDA national convention slated for July in San Francisco.

Currently, Fleischer is the chief executive and principal employee of Ari Fleischer Communications and Ari Fleischer Sports Communications. Fleischer Sports Communications is a firm devoted to training and consulting athletes and organizations on crisis communications and how to deal with the media.

He will address CoSIDA Convention attendees at the luncheon on Tuesday, July 6, and will participate in a panel on strategic messaging following that luncheon. The annual convention takes place at San Francisco’s Marriott Marquis from July 4-7.

Since leaving the White House, Fleischer has worked with some of the most established people and organizations in sports. Clients include or have included the U.S. Olympic Committee, NFL, Major League Baseball, the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, Penske Racing as well as several other leading sports figures and entities.

Fleischer conducts media training sessions with teams or leagues, and works with athletes one-on-one in confidential settings. He also helps advise several major corporations about their communications issues and served as International media consultant to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“I very much look forward to addressing CoSIDA,” Fleischer said. “College sports has more than its share of communications controversies – and communications opportunities – to talk about. It’s exciting to be part of the sports scene and I look forward to this convention.”

Fleischer will be the most recent of an impressive line of notable and distinguished CoSIDA Convention keynote speakers. In 2007, the late NCAA President Dr. Myles Brand spoke at the Convention. In 2009, Kevin Sullivan, Assistant to the President for Communications in the White House from July of 2006 who began his PR career as a Purdue University sports information student, addressed the attendees.

“CoSIDA is honored to have such a distinguished PR communicator as Ari Fleischer address our 2010 Convention,” noted CoSIDA President Justin Doherty of the University of Wisconsin. “Ari has been on the forefront of communications with the two institutions which command media attention 24/7 in our country – the White House and our premier sports leagues and teams. His crisis communications experience in politics and with professional and amateur sports is extensive, and we know his message to the CoSIDA membership will be relevant to the pressures, demands and changing communication strategies that we all face as professionals.”

“We’ve had a wonderful roster of keynote speakers at recent conventions, I’d like to give credit to (Temple University’s) Larry Dougherty, CoSIDA’s first vice-president who chairs the 2010 convention workshop committee, for contacting Ari Fleischer in late summer and working closely with him and his organization,” Doherty concluded.

“Mr. Fleischer was immediately interested in addressing our group, noting the importance of athletic communications and the role we play in collegiate athletics. Securing a speaker of the stature of Ari Fleischer is a wonderful testament to CoSIDA and speaks of the important work we are doing at our campuses and organizations.”

As former White House press secretary, Fleischer was the primary spokesperson for President George W. Bush and delivered the daily White House briefings from 2001 to 2003. He served as spokesman during the historic presidential recount, September 11th, two wars and the anthrax attack. His best-selling book, Taking Heat, details his years in the White House and reached No. 7 on The New York Times best-seller list.

Following his White House tenure, Fleischer started offering his services as a corporate consultant. His first client was Major League Baseball, starting the day after the March 2005 congressional steroid hearings. In 2008, Fleischer partnered with IMG to formally create a firm that specifically deals with sports -- Ari Fleischer Sports Communications.

Prior to his White House tenure, Fleischer previously served as the senior communications advisor and spokesman for the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign.Prior to joining Governor Bush’s campaign, Mr. Fleischer was the national spokesman and communications director for Elizabeth Dole’s presidential campaign.

In 1994, Mr. Fleischer was hired as communications director by the House Committee on Ways and Means. He also served as press secretary to New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici (1989 to 1994). From 1983 to 1989, he was press secretary to two members of Congress from New York and worked on several political campaigns.

Fleischer, a devoted sports fan who plays in a 40-and-over baseball league, is a native of Pound Ridge, New York, and a 1982 graduate of Vermont’s Middlebury College. He resides in Westchester County, NY with his wife, Becki, and their two children.