Mark Dollins
Mark Dollins is president of North Star Communications Consulting, a consultancy with core capabilities in communications talent development, and in employee communications strategy.
Founded in 2011, North Star has provided communications consulting services to clients that include Visa, Keep America Beautiful, Toyota, Louis Vuitton and Xerox. He helped those organizations address critical communications needs and/or identify core marketing and communications competencies, assess talent, design organizational structures and provide professional training and development.
He won an IABC Gold Quill of Excellence in 2015, and received PR Week’sinternal campaign of the year award in 2015 for his change management communications work with Toyota. During that time, he also was a strategic partner with Future Workplace, a consortium of companies focused on identifying trends that will impact the future workforce.
Mark’s previous corporate experience includes serving as head of Executive & Global Employee Communications for E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont).
In this role, he was responsible for creating and executing strategies that increasingly engaged 35,000 employees in the Company’s growth strategies, and empowered leaders to more effectively engage their teams through communications. This includes driving communications strategies for the CEO and Senior Executive Team -- internally and externally- - and driving change management communications for the enterprise.
In 2017 and 2018, his team earned 6 IABC Gold Quills and two PRSA Silver Anvil awards for change management, employee engagement and employee communications.
In 2018, PR Weekawarded him its highest honor for employee communications in North America, nominated his team’s work for best campaign of the year, and bestowed its High Commendation for employee communications in its 2018 Global Communications competition.
Mark also was SVP and Chief Communications Officer at Pepsi Beverages and PepsiCo Americas Foods; and SVP of global internal communications, among other senior corporate roles. He led public relations, internal communications, government affairs, philanthropy and community relations and diversity communications.
He led PepsiCo’s 2011 acquisition of its anchor bottlers and ran merger communications for PepsiCo’s acquisition of The Quaker Oats Company, where he was VP of Corporate Communications.
While at Quaker, he led both Corporate Communications and brand communications for Quaker, Lifeand Cap’n Crunchcereals,Aunt Jemimasyrups and mixes, Rice-A-Roni, Gatoradeand Tropicanajuices.
His 17-year career with PepsiCo followed 10 years in the energy sector, running Corporate Communications for Northern Indiana Public Service Company, and leading employee communications for Indiana Michigan Power/American Electric Power.
Mark began his career in broadcast and print journalism, working with ABC News and other print news outlets. He currently serves on the national advisory council of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, served for eight years on LSU’s journalism advisory board for the Manship School of Communications, and holds a seat on The Conference Board’s Change & Transformation Council.
He was awarded a bachelor’s degree in Radio/TV from The George Washington University, and a master’s degree in organizational communications from Purdue University. He also is a certified USA Wrestling coach, and two-time national USA Wrestling masters folk style champion.