Ruth Wooden

Ruth A. Wooden served as President of Public Agenda from August, 2003—December, 2010. Founded in 1975 by former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich, Public Agenda works to help average citizens better understand critical policy issues and to help the nation’s leaders better understand the public’s point of view. Public Agenda’s work overall has won praise for its credibility and fairness from elected officials from both political parties and from experts and decision makers across the political spectrum.

Before her appointment as Public Agenda’s President, she was Senior Counselor at the international communications firm, Porter Novelli from September 2001-August 2003, working with client business related to social marketing, social advertising, strategic philanthropy, and cause marketing. From July 1999-March 2003, she served as the volunteer coordinator of The Crystal Team, the “Madison Avenue” advertising team for the Presidential Campaign of Senator Bill Bradley. Wooden has over 30 years experience in marketing and advertising, and served for 12 years as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Advertising Council, the leading producer of public service communications programs in the United States.

In addition to serving on the board of Futures Without Violence, Wooden also serves on the boards of Civic Ventures (Chair), Demos, Independent Sector, TeachersCount, and Public Agenda. She is a former Director of CARE, Research! America, the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, The Harvard Business School Initiative on Social Enterprise and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.