Olga Willard

Member

Olga Willard, a doctoral fellow in the strategic communications program at the University of Central Florida, has led companies and advised brands and Fortune 500 executives in public relations and advertising for a quarter-century in Eastern Europe and the US.

In public relations, her focus has been on crisis management, media messaging, and advising business executives, political candidates, and government leaders. In advertising, she has specialized in brand development, working for several worldwide agencies.

As the CEO and a partner of Willard Global Strategies, Olga Willard has been at the forefront of strategic planning and execution for numerous clients.

Over the last seven years, her primary focus has been with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in particular with USAID’s Securing Water for Food program and, most recently, with the Agency’s Partnerships Incubator. She advised USAID’s implementing partners and beneficiaries on marketing and public relations in the US, EU, and multiple developing markets and provided leadership communication advice to USAID’s project directors.

Olga previously served as CEO of the Willard Group, headquartered in Kyiv, with oversight of offices in Moscow and Istanbul, managing a team of over 50 employees.

The company worked with Danone (Dannon in the US), Royal Dutch Shell, Philip Morris, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Kraft, and many other international companies as well as local ones.

Ms. Willard is working toward her PhD in Strategic Communications, with research interests in societal and business resilience. She holds an Executive MBA (2020) from UCF and an MS in Management of Organizations (1999) from Ukraine’s Institute for Entrepreneurship.