Eleanor McManus is co-founder and partner of Trident DMG and of the law firm Galper & Goldberg.
A former award-winning journalist at CNN for over 10 years, Eleanor has over two decades of experience providing clients with strategic counsel for internal and external communications, media relations, reputation and crisis management, issue mitigation, and litigation communications. She provides strategic communications to Fortune 500 firms and high-profile individuals.
Eleanor has been recognized as a leader in the field. She has been named to Lawdragon’s Global 100 Leaders in Legal Strategy and Consulting for crisis communications from 2019-2023. In 2021, Eleanor was named an “Industry Innovator” by PR News’s “Top Women in PR Awards.” Business Insider named Eleanor to its list of Top Public Relations Expert CEOs to Hire in a Crisis in 2021 and its list of Best Public-Relations People in the Tech Industry in 2017.
In the strategic communications and thought leadership side of her practice, Eleanor works with emerging to high-growth tech companies, as well as local to Fortune 30 companies in addition to CEOs and top executives, investors, and entrepreneurs. Hallmarks of her practice include executive and market positioning, product and service launches, financing rounds, and communications support for marketing and public affairs campaigns. She also has a wealth of experience working closely with attorneys to develop and execute proactive and reactive communications strategies for litigation, government investigations, settlement, trial, and sensitive legal issues.
She has counseled a wide variety of clients, including high-profile individuals, celebrities and athletes, tech companies across sectors, and hospitality and culinary businesses and figures, among many others. She has also counseled many women during the #MeToo movement helping them bravely tell their stories.
Eleanor has a proven track record of defining and driving communications strategies and regularly works with premier national and international outlets (in addition to local and trade outlets), such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, The Hill, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and Fox Business, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC, the Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg properties, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, Tech Crunch, The Information, ReCode, Vanity Fair, and many others.
She is a sought-after media trainer for CEOs and other senior executives, preparing them for media interviews and public appearances.
Previously, Eleanor was a senior vice president at Levick Communications in Washington, D.C., where she crafted strategic communications campaigns focusing on media relations and crisis communications. Eleanor came to that firm through the acquisition of a bipartisan public affairs firm that she co-founded with former White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
Eleanor began her career in 1999 as a booker at CNN, where she worked for over a decade at the cable news channel’s then-highest-rated program, Larry King Live. She rose to become a senior producer and was responsible for planning, booking, and producing exclusive interviews with iconic newsmakers and well-known political figures, including Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Ford, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, every presidential candidate in both 2004 and 2008, and foreign leaders such as Russian Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Jordan’s Queens Noor and Rania. She also helped to cover historic events, including the September 11th attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the passing of Presidents Ford and Reagan, President Obama’s inauguration, and the earthquake in Haiti.
Eleanor received Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Awards for September 11th coverage and a 2005 DuPont award for coverage of the tsunami disaster in South Asia. She also played a key role in teams that won Peabody Awards for Hurricane Katrina coverage (2005), outstanding political coverage of a U.S. presidential campaign (2008), and the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill coverage (2010).
Eleanor co-founded Press Forward, a nonpartisan, independent group that works to create a safe work environment and elevate the stature of women in the newsroom.
She graduated from Brandeis University with a B.A. in economics and sociology and received an M.A. in journalism and public affairs from American University.
Eleanor is fluent in Russian and Spanish.