Ron Culp

Ron Culp is a veteran public relations executive whose career includes senior roles in government, corporations, agencies and academia.

Before joining DePaul University’s College of Communication as professional director of the graduate program in public relations and advertising graduate program, Ron was managing director of Ketchum Chicago, where he also headed the global agency’s North American corporate practice.

Prior to his agency career, he was a corporate officer and senior vice president of public relations and government affairs at Sears. Earlier in his corporate career, Ron held senior corporate communications roles at Sara Lee Corporation, Pitney Bowes and Eli Lilly. He began his career as a newspaper reporter upon graduation from Indiana State University, and then spent the next eight years in political positions in Indiana and New York.

At DePaul, Ron teaches courses about Chicago corporations and their communication functions, agency management and leadership. He also serves as professional director of DePaul’s graduate PRAD program, which was named the 2018 Outstanding Education Program by PRWeek.

In addition to joining Matt Ragas in co-editing Mastering Business: C-suite Insights from Strategic Communications Leaders, Ron and Matt earlier wrote, Business Essentials for Strategic Communicators. For the past 10 years, Ron has written the popular PR career blog, Culpwrit.

Ron is active in several industry and civic organizations and is the recipient of numerous awards, including PRSA’s prestigious Gold Anvil and he is the only individual to win the two top awards bestowed by the Arthur W. Page Society—the Hall of Fame and Distinguished Service Awards. He is listed in Crain’s Who’s Who in Chicago Business.