CHRISTOPHER HAYES
📞 +1 202 816 1594 | ✉️ christophernmnhayes@gmail.com

Christopher Hayes is a seasoned Maryland-based executive and consultant specializing in public affairs, strategic communications, media relations, stakeholder engagement, and geopolitics. He brings more than twenty-five years of experience helping companies, nonprofits, states, provinces, and national governments advocate effectively, advance legislative objectives, raise funds, manage and mitigate risk, navigate crises, and enter new markets.
A passionate believer in and advocate for the elevation of communications and engagement to impact and accomplish organizational goals, Chris offers deep expertise across strategic communications, media relations, business strategy, quantitative, qualitative, and mental-models research, digital and social media, marketing and advertising, and the management of complex, multi-stakeholder campaigns. Early in his career, he worked on eight U.S. political campaigns, serving as a campaign manager, press secretary, and field representative. Hayes is particularly proud of helping to lead four successful global advocacy and media efforts that secured the release of American and other nationals unjustly detained abroad as political prisoners.
Chris spent more than eighteen years at Edelman, the world’s largest communications firm, where he served in senior leadership roles, including ten years as an Executive Vice President. During his tenure, he led the firm’s Washington, DC, international/public affairs, media relations, and market-entry practices. He is the only four-time recipient of Edelman’s Global Chairman’s Award for Excellence, an annual firmwide honor awarded among approximately 6,000 employees across more than 60 offices worldwide.
Over the course of his career, Chris has consulted for more than twenty governments across Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, and Central America. His work has included media and public affairs, legislative advocacy, crisis management, economic development, and issues-management campaigns for the governments of the United States Virgin Islands, Japan, Switzerland, Panama, Morocco, Chile, India, the United States, and Thailand.
While at Edelman, Chris served as a senior public affairs and communications advisor to the Panama Canal for ten years, traveling to Panama quarterly and receiving top performance ratings from the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) for seven of the ten years of the engagement. Earlier in his career, he spent six years at The Rendon Group working on Washington, DC–based international, media, and public affairs consulting assignments. In the late 1990s, he served as Vice President of PrimeShot.com, leading all marketing and communications efforts, including brand creation, and paid and owned media strategy.
Chris has extensive management experience spanning staff leadership, P&L oversight, client relations, product development, and KPI-driven performance. He is certified in Mental Models Research & Technology for evidence-based stakeholder influence, as well as in cross-cultural communications using the Richard Lewis system. A market-entry expert, he founded and led Edelman’s market-entry consulting practice, Periscope.
Chris pursued graduate studies in public policy at The George Washington University, completing a two-year graduate certificate program, and earned his undergraduate degree in international relations from George Mason University. He established an annual fund to support enrichment programs at his children’s local public elementary-middle school and serves on the board or advisory boards of the Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center, the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, and Squash Wise, a mentoring and athletics program for underserved youth.
Married and the father of three, Chris lives in Maryland. He is an avid traveler and reader, and enjoys squash and chess.