WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Business Council announced today that Marlene Colucci-Renna will join the organization as Executive Director, effective July 1. She succeeds Phil Cassidy, current Executive Director of the organization, who will retire at the end of 2013.
Colucci-Renna joins The Business Council from the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), where she has served as Executive Vice President for Public Policy since 2005. Before joining the AHLA, Marlene served as a Special Assistant to the President in the Domestic Policy Council. Prior to the White House, she served as both Counsel to the Deputy Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor.
“On behalf of our members, I am pleased to welcome Marlene to our organization,” said Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Dow Chemical Company, and Chairman of The Business Council. “Marlene brings a strong policy background and in-depth business perspective, coupled with proven leadership abilities and track record of delivering results in a member service role. I am confident her expertise will add further energy and drive to the Council’s agenda of fostering understanding and forging solutions to major public policy solutions facing business and governments today.”
Colucci-Renna graduated from University of California, Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies, and a juris doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center. She also practiced law with the firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, LLP, providing strategic counsel to clients on a variety of public policy and business matters.
About The Business Council
The Business Council is a voluntary association of business leaders whose members meet several times a year for the free exchange of ideas both among themselves and with thought leaders from many sectors. In its most fundamental form, the Council seeks to foster understanding through discussion. It promotes learning, best practice sharing and networking by its members with a view to making a contribution to our society, the global economy and to business generally.
Since its founding more than 75 years ago, The Business Council membership has consisted of a group of current or former chief executive officers from a broad range of companies. All major industries are represented among the members of The Business Council. Because schedule demands on senior business executives are extensive, the Council provides an especially valuable opportunity to discuss major subjects in a broader ranging forum than is normally available in the course of business activities. As part of its process, the Council invites leaders in government, politics, academia, science, medicine, technology and other sectors to address the Council and to participate in its discussions. Council members hope that these discussions result in better understanding by their invited guests as well as by the members themselves.
Today, the Council meets three times a year in a collegial atmosphere to share and explore ideas. As a gathering of peers from many fields, the Council is entirely an educational and deliberative forum. It never takes positions as an organization and does not advocate any policy or course of action. Individual members sometimes do present their own views in public discussions. But they do so as individuals, rather than as representatives of the Council.
Visit The Business Council’s website at www.businesscouncil.com.
