Ellen Wilson

Principal and Director, Global, Burness

Chevy Chase, Maryland

Ellen Wilson is the Principal and Director of Burness’ global team, which includes a branch office in Nairobi, Kenya. She has almost three decades of experience providing strategic communications counsel to some 80 global nonprofits working in malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and other tropical diseases; agricultural research and hunger, particularly focused on Africa; and human rights, climate change and forestry protection. She leads high-impact, media- centered, multi-continent communications campaigns that deliver increased exposure for research and solutions to social issues in developing countries. She has directly carried out communications activities across Europe, as well as in Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania.

A selection of the groups for which she’s helped develop and implement communications activities in global health include Aeras, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Health Innovative Technology Fund, Global Health Technologies Coalition, International Partnership for Microbicides, Medicines Patent Pool, Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) TB Alliance, and the World Health Organization, among others.

“I started working at my college newspaper before I even moved into my dorm.”

In the area of rights of Indigenous People, climate change, forestry and agriculture, she has led communications activities for AGRA, the Climate and Land Use Alliance, the Ford Foundation, Forest Trends, Global Crop Diversity Trust, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Rights and Resources Initiative, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Union of Concerned Scientists and World Resources Institute.

Prior to joining Burness, Ellen worked at a public relations firm that represented Planned Parenthood Federation of America and civil rights organizations. Ellen holds a BA in Political Science-International Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.