Claire Doan
Senior Vice President
Claire Doan specializes in crisis communications, public affairs, stakeholder management and media relations for transformative events and issues, including cybersecurity, litigation, labor and leadership changes.
Claire brings 15 years of experience to her strategic communications practice, leveraging her unique background as in-house expert for California’s third largest employer and an investigative journalist. Previously the chief communications architect for the University of California (UC), Claire directed system-wide communications, public affairs and crisis response. She also served as the University’s primary media strategist and spokesperson, representing a combined half-million employees and students across 10 renowned campuses and six top-ranked academic medical centers. Claire spearheaded communications strategies on a myriad of high-profile matters, including standardized testing, state audits, immigration, sexual harassment and UC’s DACA lawsuit against the Trump administration. Claire’s media expertise also draws from her years of hard-news reporting, which has been honored with an Emmy Award and two Edward R. Murrow Awards.
Representative Experience
• GitLab on crisis preparation and response
• Providence Health on communications counsel and issues management
• A large public utilities company on a discrimination lawsuit from employees
• Pro bono litigation communications support for Jarvis Masters, an innocent man on San Quentin’s death row
• Over the course of her career, Claire has also supported:
○ The University of California during the Accellion data breach and Varsity Blues admissions scandal
Education
• Harvard Business School Executive Education, Crisis Leadership in Higher Education
• Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, M.S. in Journalism
• University of California, Berkeley, B.A. in Mass Communications
Memberships and Affiliations
• Arthur W. Page Society
Languages
• Vietnamese