Tracy Knippenburg Gillis leads Marsh Risk Consulting’s Reputational Risk & Crisis Management Practice. Based in New York, she provides clients with tailored solutions to protect their organizations from the effects of crises and other adverse events. She has significant experience in providing integrated preparedness solutions comprised of planning, training, and exercise programs, including crisis management and preparedness plan formulation and analysis, risk assessment and mitigation strategy development, development of response policies and procedures, training, and simulations. Tracy also provides real-time strategic support to clients facing crises.

Tracy has more than 25 years of experience in crisis management, crisis communications, planning, training, and exercises, and real-time response. Her work has focused in several high-risk industries—extensively in the oil, chemical, heavy manufacturing, transportation, financial services, consumer products, and food service industries. She has also worked with several regulatory and government agencies and associations in establishing guidance, standards, and industry programs.

Tracy has assisted in the development and evaluation of numerous crisis management and crisis communications programs, and provided training to executives and responders around the world in crisis management, crisis communications, emergency response, and spokesperson training. Tracy has also assisted clients during actual crises involving physical, financial, pandemic, and reputational threats.

At her own firm and as the Chief Operating Officer of a crisis management consulting firm before joining Marsh, she provided a wide range of crisis management advice and support to her clients. Tracy is the author of articles on the subject, as well as the author of a book entitled, Emergency Exercise Handbook. She led one of the first of its kind full-scale, 72-hour corporate crisis management exercises that included the chairman and senior management team of a global corporation, in addition to operations and response personnel across several countries.

Earlier in her career, Tracy was the project manager for a nuclear engineering consulting firm and the Public Information Officer and Spokesperson for the Ohio Disaster Services Agency. She responded to numerous events during her tenure including spills, accidents, and weather events.

• The George Washington University, M.B.A., Int’l Business
• Ohio University, B.S. Journalism, Cum Laude