Donna Uchida

Donna Uchida is a Vice President at Van Prooyen Greenfield LLP, and is based in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Uchida offers VPG clients the experience of a senior-level executive with results-oriented management experience in multi-national communications including executive communications, change management, employee engagement, customer communications, issues management and risk communications.  With more than 25 years of experience, Ms. Uchida has held diverse communications positions in corporations, agencies and academe.  She has successfully focused on maintaining corporate reputation through integrated communications programs that carefully align external and internal messages. 

Prior to joining VPG, Ms. Uchida was a key member of a team that planned and executed CEO and senior leadership communications to help business leaders engage and motivate teams during times of significant change for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation.  She recently served as Vice President of Communications for CropLife America in Washington, D.C., where she represented large company interests in issues affecting the pesticide industry.  Prior to that, she was Global Head of Communications for Arysta LifeScience, Tokyo, where she responsible for leading the team that successfully transitioned 45 subsidiaries in more than 140 countries to move to a single name and global strategy without disruption to the business.  She also managed multi-national communications for acquisitions in South Africa, Europe and the United States.

As the Senior Director of Internal Communications for Gap, Inc., Ms. Uchida introduced the Gap purpose, values and behaviors to the company’s top 1,100 leaders as part of a business transformation effort that included supply chain communications.  She built the first global employee communications function for Oracle Corporation, a global company with 40,000+ employees in more than 100 countries. Prior to that, Ms. Uchida was vice president of Corporate Communications for Wells Fargo & Company, where she was responsible for executive and financial communications and national media relations and issues management, including business recovery after Sept. 11.  She also was a communications manager for Levi Strauss & Co., where she supported HR, IT, Legal and Finance.

Her agency work includes establishing the Workplace Practice for PR agency Ketchum San Francisco, spearheading employee communications strategies for companies including Visa, Genentech, Levi Strauss & Co. and Schwab, doubling revenue of the practice to $1.5 million in a year.

She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Colorado State University, University of Denver, Golden Gate University and currently teaches at Georgetown University. 

Ms. Uchida holds B.A. degress in Mass Communications and Political Science and an M.A. in Communications from the University of Denver.  She completed doctorate courses in Sociology focusing on risk communications and influencing individual and group behavior from Colorado State University.  She is author of the book, Preparing Students for the 21st Century.

Education

• B.A., Mass Communications, University of Denver
• B.A., Political Science, University of Denver
• M.A., Communications, University of Denver

Noteworthy

• Author, Preparing Students for the 21st Century

Seminars & Speeches

• Georgetown University
• Colorado State University
• University of Denver