Donna Imperato

More About Donna Imperato

Donna Imperato is Global CEO of BCW, one of the world’s largest earned and integrated communications agencies. BCW partners with clients across all business, industry, NGO and government sectors to create powerful ideas that earn attention, move people and solve complex problems. The agency leverages its earned expertise - combined with its deep paid media, creative, digital, and data analytics and insights - to create campaigns that can be executed across all media and platforms.  BCW is a part of WPP (NYSE: WPP), a creative transformation company.

Imperato manages all operations across BCW’s global network and serves as a senior counselor to key clients across all practice areas, including corporate affairs, healthcare, technology and brand marketing. In 2021, BCW’s work with Lenovo earned the Platinum Global SABRE Award from PRovoke as the best campaign in the world for the year. For two successive years, BCW was named Global Agency of the Year by PRovoke Media. In 2020, BCW ranked #1 atop PRovoke Media’s Global Creative Index, which ranks creative excellence in the industry.

Imperato is also CEO of BCW Group, which includes AxiCom, WPP’s specialist technology PR agency; Direct Impact, a grassroots and advocacy agency; GCI Health, a global healthcare integrated communications agency; Goodfuse, a boutique health communications agency; HZ, an integrated creative agency; and Prime Policy Group, a public affairs and public policy consultancy.

Before overseeing the merger of Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe to create BCW, Imperato served for 15 years as CEO of Cohn & Wolfe, driving the evolution of the agency from a revered boutique to a renowned international powerhouse attracting great talent and companies looking for bold, breakthrough ideas. She led the firm through five successive years of double-digit growth between 2014 and 2018. Under her leadership, Cohn & Wolfe had been named PRWeek’s Agency of the Year, The Holmes Report’s North America Large Agency of the Year, EMEA Creative PR Consultancy of the Year and Southeast Asia Consultancy of the Year. Cohn & Wolfe also had been listed consistently as a “Best Place to Work’ by The Holmes Report, PRWeek, Crain’s NY, Advertising Age and PR News.

In 2018, Imperato was named to the number-one position on PRWeek’s “Power 50 List,” an annual ranking of the top 50 marketing and communications professionals in the U.S. from across the agency and client worlds. In 2016, she was included in PRWeek's inaugural list of "Women of Distinction," which honors female industry leaders who “challenge the status quo, push for the big idea, and strive to make a difference.” In 2013, she was awarded the SABRE Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement, and in 2009 she was inducted into the PRNews Hall of Fame. She is a member of the Partnership for New York City, the Women’s Forum of New York and the International Women’s Forum, invitation-only organizations that advance leadership across careers, cultures and continents. She is also a member of the Arthur W. Page Society.