Bruce M. Hennes

As chief executive officer, Bruce M. Hennes has grown Hennes Communications into one of the few firms in North America focused exclusively on crisis communications, crisis management and litigation communications consulting.

Following years of political campaign work at the local, state and federal levels, Hennes spent three years managing a 1200-family nonprofit followed by three years in the automotive industry providing government and public relations counsel. He opened his own communications firm in 1989.

Today, Hennes Communications counts among its current and former clients the American Public Power Association, Avery Dennison, ThyssenKrupp, Evonik, Interlake Steamship Company, Kent State University, Ohio University, Lubrizol, NASA, Northeast Ohio Medical University and The Riverside Company, as well as scores of other public and private companies, law firms, schools (public/private/parochial/independent), nursing homes and other senior adult communities, hospitals, universities, larger nonprofits and government agencies. The firm’s recent assignments have spanned the United States and include work in Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Japan and South America. Recently, the firm won two Silver Anvils, the public relations profession’s most prestigious award, from the Public Relations Society of America, as part of the communications team, led by one of its clients, Destination Cleveland, in recognition of the nonpartisan work done by the firm to support the non-partisan Cleveland Host Committee for the 2016 Republican National Convention.

As a nationally-known crisis communication specialist and media trainer, Hennes is an in-demand speaker on the many facets of crisis communications and crisis management, speaking frequently to bar and trade associations, elected officials, police, fire, education and health officials.  He is especially noted for his insights on handling extreme situations involving threats to life and limb, and often is invited to speak at events sponsored by emergency management agencies. For the last 22 years, he has published Crisis Management Today, a twice-monthly newsletter with more than 8,500 subscribers.

Hennes is a longtime member of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association’s board of directors and executive committee, making him one of just a few non-attorneys to sit on the board of a major metropolitan bar association. He is recipient of the bar association’s President’s Award in 2008 and 2018 and on the faculty of the Ohio State Bar Association’s Leadership Academy. He was a four-time keynoter for the American Bar Association’s Bar Leadership Institute in Chicago, on the faculty of the Winding River Managing Partner Bootcamp and he annually teaches more than 40 continuing legal education seminars to law firms and state and local bar associations across the country. He is a recipient of the President’s Special Award for Extraordinary Service from the Cuyahoga County Bar Association and two Vega awards from the American Red Cross. In 2011, he received the Communicator of the Year award from the International Association of Business Communicators, Cleveland; and in 2013, he received a Gold “Rocks” award and “Best of Show” award from the Public Relations Society of America, Greater Cleveland Chapter, for his crisis communications work related to a ferry boat crash in New York City’s Financial District. In addition, he was named one of the “50 Game-Changers of PR for 2017” by industry publication PRNews. In 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 he was named to the Lawdragon 100 Leading Consultants and Strategists, the definitive guide to the financiers, recruiters, marketing and communication gurus on whom the legal profession relies.  “These are 100 of the most trusted advisors to the legal profession,” said Lawdragon.  In 2020, he was named by the National Law Review (founded in 1888) as a “Go-To Thought Leader” for columns he has contributed to the publication’s website, one of the most widely read business law websites in the U.S.  And in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 he was named to the Cleveland 500 list of the Most Powerful Individuals by Cleveland Magazine’s Community Leader publication.

Hennes is past chairman of the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s public affairs committee and past chairman of The Cleveland Jewish News.  Currently, he is an associate professor in the Scripps College of Communications at Ohio University, adjunct professor at the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University, an instructor in the university’s Ohio Certified Public Manager Program and chairman of the Leadership Cleveland Selection Committee. In 2010, he was inducted into the Plain Local Schools (Canton, Ohio) Hall of Fame. A member of The 50 Club of Cleveland, comprised of the city’s top CEOs, Hennes has a degree in political science from York University in Toronto, Canada and he is certified in effective communications by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.