Charlie McDonald

Charlie McDonald


Crisis Management International

Tel: (404) 841-3400
www.cmiatl.com

• Author
• Consultant
• Speaker

As the leader of the CMI crisis consulting practice and with more than 22 years in the crisis management profession, Charlie brings many diverse capabilities to CMI clients. For the last 10 years, Charlie has worked with CMI’s corporate clients to develop or improve crisis management plans, conduct crisis exercises, and provide strategic direction during actual crises for all types of companies, including chemical, energy, food, financial, pharmaceutical, high-tech, manufacturing, retail and non-profits.

For the previous 9 years, Charlie was the worldwide crisis management competency leader for the E.I. DuPont Company. He was internationally recognized as an expert in all aspects of corporate crisis management, i.e., strategies, policies, processes, procedures, organizational structures, external and internal communications, facilities, etc. He provided strategic guidance to DuPont during actual incidents, protecting corporate reputation and financial stability by ensuring actions of senior management and other responders were consistent with crisis management policies.

From 1989 to 1998, he led strategic crisis management and communication planning for DuPont, developed crisis management policies, plans, and procedures for the corporation, business units, staff functions and international regions, and ensured smooth integration at the operational level. Charlie developed and maintained crisis response and external communication skills of the CEO’s Office, and corporate, business, staff, and international crisis teams. He strengthened crisis teams’ effectiveness by increasing awareness of each other’s roles and responsibilities. Team roles included security, litigation & labor law, environmental law, business resumption, procurement, logistics, public relations, regulatory compliance, transportation, safety and employee health, community relations, employee relations, next-of-kin notification, trauma assessment and debriefing, environmental remediation, etc.

Charlie has designed, conducted, and evaluated hundreds of drills for corporate, business and international crisis teams; applied learning from drills to improve plans and train teams; and developed networks to improve actual incident communications, reducing the potential for situations to become serious crises. He has extensive experience in Strategic Crisis Planning and conducting crisis media training for corporate spokespersons.