The veteran Washington journalist rejoins the H+K family of companies from ExxonMobil

Hill+Knowlton Strategies is pleased to welcome Richard D. Keil, corporate media relations expert and former lead White House correspondent, as an executive vice president in its global corporate practice focusing on media relations, crisis and public affairs, starting in January. Keil’s career spans more than 30 years of political reporting, corporate and crisis communications, strategic consulting, and media relations counsel.

“For decades Dick has been working at the intersection of business, politics and journalism – a position that has never been more critical than it is today,” said Jack Martin, global executive chairman and CEO of Hill+Knowlton Strategies. “His wisdom and expertise is a strong complement to our team of experienced senior political, public affairs and media strategists and we look forward to having him back within H+K.”

Keil most recently served in various roles in the public and government affairs department at the Irving, Texas, headquarters of the ExxonMobil Corporation, where he helped devise, guide and implement the Fortune 5 company’s public profile and engagement with key media and policy stakeholders in the U.S. and around the world. His scope of work included media relations, crisis management, campaign management and brand and reputation promotion and defense.

Before joining ExxonMobil, Keil served as a senior communications advisor at Purple Strategies and before that at Jack Martin’s Austin, Texas-based Public Strategies, Inc., a business advisory firm that has since merged with H+K. In those posts, Keil led and staffed an array of communications needs for the firms’ corporate, government and trade association clients.

Keil also spent 20 years as a Washington-based journalist for The Associated Press and Bloomberg News, where he was a White House and political correspondent. He covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, and was a frequent guest on PBS’ “Washington Week in Review” and other cable and network and radio public affairs programs.

“I’m thrilled to be able to rejoin a world-class firm with the assets and talent that H+K has to offer,” Keil said. “It’s a firm staffed with top communications strategists and issue experts from politics and the corporate world and I look forward to working with them on behalf of the firm’s clients.”

Earlier this month, H+K welcomed veteran GOP strategist Scott Reed as a senior advisor. Keil and Reed join a deep bench of H+K political and public affairs counselors, including: Howard Opinsky, previous press secretary to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and a communication strategist at the National Senatorial Campaign Committee; James Fuller, chief of staff during the Bush administration at TSA and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and long-time senior advisor to U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico; Alia Faraj-Johnson in Florida, who previously served as former Gov. Jeb Bush’s press secretary and communications director; Ellen Moran, who previously served as chief of staff and chief advisor to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke after serving the Obama administration in 2009 as the White House communications director; Joe Householder, a former journalist, communications director for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s reelection campaign in 2002; and Mark McKinnon, who has worked for many causes, companies and candidates, including former President George W. Bush, Sen. John McCain, Gov. Ann Richards, and Bono, and was recently co-creator, co-executive producer and co-host of Showtime’s real-time documentary series of the 2016 presidential election: “The Circus: The Greatest Political Show on Earth.”