May 12, 2009, WESTFORD, MA -- Carnegie Communications, a leading higher education research, marketing and consulting firm with headquarters near Boston, MA, announced today that it has named Cecil Foster, Christopher Hardwick and Dr. Debbie Godfrey as executive vice presidents at the firm.  The appointments are part of Carnegie's strategy to assemble a team of top marketing and communications professionals who bring innovative practices from both inside and outside of higher education.

Foster, who joins Carnegie as Executive Vice President/ Consulting Services, is a dynamic higher education leader who has held senior positions in enrollment management, admissions and financial aid at diverse institutions.  Hardwick, who joins Carnegie as Executive Vice President/ Communications Strategy, has developed and executed successful communications, public relations and reputation management strategies for leading universities and corporations over the past 25 years - including the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, ARAMARK Corporation, CIT Group and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

The two new EVP's join Dr. Debbie Godfrey, who now becomes Executive Vice President/ Market Research & Brand Strategy to round out the firm's senior management team reporting to Carnegie's President Owen Landon III.  Dr. Godfrey brings to her higher education clients more than 20 years of experience leading Fortune 100-level market research, brand planning, and creative execution initiatives.

In making the announcement, Carnegie's Landon said, "We are very excited and fortunate to have brought together this talented team of senior professionals at such a critical time for colleges and universities.  We now have the ideal combination of expertise and capabilities that will serve our clients in higher education with the most innovative research and data-driven marketing and communications solutions of any firm in the business."

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About Carnegie

Carnegie Communications is a leading edge marketing firm that partners with educational institutions to help them achieve their strategic objectives in enrollment and advancement.  Using customized market research, innovative branding techniques and powerful marketing expertise, the firm develops targeted brand platforms and marketing plans, as well as a full range of inspired marketing and communications solutions.  For more information, visit carnegiecomm.com

About Cecil Foster

Foster served as Chief Enrollment Officer at the University of South Dakota, where he oversaw the Admission, Financial Aid, and Registrars functions of the University.  He also served on the USD Executive Committee and Presidents Advisory Council where he developed state of the art scholarship matrices, enrollment forecasting models and implemented new reporting structures --  increasing enrollment by 10.6 percent in a short two year period. In addition to USD, Foster's professional career in education has covered Daemen, Canisius, and D'Youville Colleges. While at Daemen, he served as the Director of Admissions and pioneered a theory now known as "The 24 hour Admissions Office" that makes use of the most innovative technology in higher education today. The use of best practices and ground breaking theories resulted in an 11.5 percent increase in enrollment over a two year period.  Prior to his roles in education, Foster co-founded the K.I.D.S Development Project in 1997, a non-profit organization that provides youths with an opportunity to attend summer camp outside of Buffalo, NY. For this work he was recognized by the state of New York, Erie County legislature for his outstanding achievements and contributions to the students of Erie County and Western New York.

About Christopher Hardwick

Hardwick, who joins Carnegie as Executive Vice President/ Communications Strategy, has developed and executed successful communications, public relations and reputation management strategies for leading universities and corporations over the past 25 years - including the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, ARAMARK Corporation, CIT Group and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the Wharton School, he led a multi-year positioning initiative and global communications strategy for the School, resulting in more top rankings and international media coverage over a five-year period than any other business school. He helped launch a new interactive research journal, knowledge@wharton, which continues today as one of the leading on-line business and management resources. He also developed, managed and implemented all internal and external communications to support Wharton's successful $500M Campaign for Sustained Leadership.  After serving in senior corporate public relations positions, he became the first Vice President of Marketing & Communications at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, creating new capabilities for the university in research communications, public relations, market research, enrollment marketing and web communications.  He began his career at Burson-Marsteller, one of the leading public relations consultancies in the world.  Hardwick holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin, an M.A. in communications from the University of Maryland and has attended executive programs at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Management.

About Debbie Godfrey

As Executive Vice President, Managing Director of Brand Planning at Young &Rubicam, Dr. Godfrey applied her qualitative and quantitative research expertise to Y&R's broad client base, including some of the county's most well-known and trusted brands: Citibank, Merrill Lynch, MetLife, Sears, AT&T, Colgate, Advil, United Airlines, Holiday Inn, Disney Cruise Lines, Kraft General Foods, Dr. Pepper, the United States Postal Service, and the U.S. Army. As Director of Creative Research, she managed the only qualitative research division in the advertising industry. Also while at Y&R, Debbie was Director of Global Brand Planning for the Citibank account, where she led the global team that provided strategic marketing and communications direction for all of Citibank's communication services in 100 countries. Her quantitative research expertise helped re-brand "CITIBANK" to "citi," an initiative that included the development of a new logo, an international marketing communications program, and the launch of Citibank's online banking.   During her 15-year career at advertising giant Young & Rubicam, Dr. Godfrey was closely associated with research on teens. Her expertise includes teen developmental stages and their current thoughts and feelings about media. Debbie holds a B.S. in Pharmacy from the University of Kansas, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Princeton University.