Heather Nauert is a member of BGR Group’s Advisory Board. Heather serves as a senior advisor to corporations, think tanks and foundations. Nauert advises Fortune 500 companies, reporting to CEOs and boards of directors, providing leaders with strategic communications guidance, including creating media campaigns to achieve clients’ unique goals.
Nauert previously served in a senior role at the U.S. Department of State. As the acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2018 to 2019, and as Spokesperson from 2017 to 2019, she articulated U.S. foreign policy and coordinated public messaging for the 75,000-person Department, its leadership, and nearly 300 U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide. She also helped plan, execute and manage messaging on all overseas trips led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
As acting Under Secretary, Nauert was the fourth-ranking official at State, overseeing nearly 1,000 staff and a $1.2 billion dollar budget. She was the Department’s highest-ranking woman while simultaneously serving as Department Spokesperson. She also served on the board of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which administers U.S. taxpayer-funded television and radio networks, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Asia, Radio Free Liberty, Cuba Broadcasting and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
Nauert provided strategic counsel to Secretary Pompeo during five meetings with North Korean officials, including Chairman Kim Jong Un, and was part of a select U.S. delegation that brought three American prisoners home from North Korea in 2018.
Nauert was an effective advocate for the administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, making the case that all nations must protect their sovereignty from economic coercion by other countries, particularly China.
Before serving in government, Nauert spent nearly 20 years as an anchor and news correspondent at Fox News and ABC News, where she covered many of the world’s most consequential stories, including the September 11 terror attacks, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
Nauert was born in Rockford, Ill., and spent much of her childhood in Wisconsin. She has an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and received her B.A. from Mount Vernon College. She currently serves on the advisory board of Warriors and Quiet Waters, a Montana-based veterans service organization. She previously served on the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and as a White House Fellows Commissioner. She lives in New York.
Areas of Focus
- Public Relations
- International Relations
Education
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Columbia University
M.S -
Mount Vernon College
B.A. -
Affiliations
Warriors and Quiet Waters,Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, White House Fellows Commissioner