Speakers

Linda A. Woolley, Executive Vice President, Government Affairs

Linda Woolley is responsible for strategically managing DMA's advocacy, legislative, and political efforts, supporting its overall business and marketing objectives, and building upon DMA's significant position in the greater marketing community and the business world at large. She also works to establish strong working relationships with DMA members and influential external constituencies, including the Administration and federal, state, and local government officials.

Prior to joining DMA in August 2008, Woolley was the principal of LegisLaw, a full-service public affairs and government relations consulting firm that she founded in 1999. The firm specialized in lobbying, particularly in the tax and trade areas, and in providing PAC-related services. Clients included Fortune 500 companies and trade associations from a wide range of industries, including transportation, manufacturing, chemicals, healthcare, energy, building materials, banking, and defense.

Woolley, who is an attorney, has extensive government relations experience, having worked for Congress, a trade association, and two Fortune 200 corporations. She began her career working on environmental legislation, and over the years has worked on a wide range of legislative and regulatory issues, including tax, trade, pension, health, energy, defense, and communications.

From 1995 to 1999, Woolley was director of public affairs for ITT Industries (a spin-off company of ITT Corporation) where she managed the company's Washington office, lobbying on issues of critical importance. Prior to that, she was director of public affairs for ITT Corporation from 1983 to 1995, where she was a lobbyist and chairman of the corporation's PAC. She participated as an auditor in ITT Corporation’s environmental auditing program and worked extensively with the United Nations Environmental Programme. Woolley has also held senior positions with the US Chamber of Commerce and the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health & Environment.

Jerry Cerasale, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs

In his role at DMA, Jerry Cerasale represents the multichannel marketing community’s policymaking interests on Capitol Hill and before key federal agencies, including the US Postal Service (USPS) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Mr. Cerasale began his legal and government relations career in the USPS’s legal department. He served for 12 years at the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) in a number of advisory roles, including seven years as legal advisor to PRC Chairman Janet Steiger. He then became attorney/advisor to FTC Chairman Janet Steiger. Immediately before joining DMA in 1995, Cerasale was deputy general counsel for the US House of Representatives Committee on Post Office and Civil Service.

Currently, Cerasale is secretary/treasurer of The Mailers Council’s Board of Directors. He has also been a member of FTC’s Advisory Committee on Online Access, and vice chairman of the Postal Matters Subsection of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association.

Rachel Nyswander Thomas, Vice President, Government Affairs

In her role at DMA, Rachel Nyswander Thomas represents the multichannel marketing community's policymaking interests on Capitol Hill and before key federal agencies.

Thomas came to DMA from The McGraw-Hill Companies, where she served most recently as manager for privacy and government affairs. In that role, she advocated the corporation’s agenda before federal policymakers on issues relating to privacy, data security, behavioral advertising, environmental and "do not promote" legislation. She also held chief responsibility for business compliance with the corporation's customer privacy policy, auditing worldwide operations and providing regulatory compliance consultation to a global corps of privacy officials. In previous roles at McGraw-Hill, Thomas managed the corporation's global gender equity initiative and its multiple mentoring programs, serving as an internal consultant to a grass-roots infrastructure of regional networks on four continents.

Prior to joining McGraw-Hill, Thomas served as director of programs and projects for the Women Faculty Forum (WFF) at Yale University, developing and expanding programs to promote gender equity and conducting policy research to advance WFF advocacy on issues of mentoring, diversity, faculty development and family-friendly workplace policies.

Neil O’Keefe, Vice President, Catalog and Multichannel Merchant Segment

Neil C. O’Keefe acts as the liaison between all DMA functions and capabilities, and its catalog and multichannel merchant segment.

He brings to DMA an extensive background in Internet marketing, catalog circulation, and database marketing, helping to provide the catalog and multichannel merchant segment’s membership with more relevant, focused, and timely access to DMA and its core assets in advocacy, self-regulation, education, research, and networking opportunities.