Christine Heenan

Christine Heenan is Chief Communications Officer and an Executive Partner at Flagship Pioneering overseeing communications, government relations, digital strategy, public affairs, and brand and marketing for Flagship and its enterprise companies. She also serves as an advisor to the two dozen Flagship-founded companies in its broader ecosystem.

As the founder and former president of Clarendon Group, a consulting firm focused on social impact, communications, advocacy, and leadership voice, Christine advised clients including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Institute, the Whitehead Institute, CARE USA, the Ballmer Group, the Rockefeller Family Office, and other notable organizations, leaders, and philanthropists. She previously served as Senior Vice President for Global Policy & Advocacy at The Rockefeller Foundation, where she led the Foundation’s policy, partnerships, fellowship, and communications teams, as well as its regional teams in Asia, Africa, and Bellagio, Italy.  

From 2008 to 2015, Christine was Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications for Harvard University, overseeing its communications, government relations, and digital strategy teams in Cambridge, Boston, and Washington, DC. During the Clinton Administration she served in the White House as a Senior Policy Analyst and speechwriter, focused primarily on health care policy, women’s issues, and other areas of domestic policy.

Christine has conceived and launched several storytelling initiatives across film, podcast, and digital media channels, including #Solvable, a global platform for highlighting the UN Sustainable Development Goals featuring more than 45 mini-films, an acclaimed podcast, and an award-winning documentary film. She also helped conceive and launch the “Without Mom” campaign, a multi-country effort to raise awareness for preventable maternal mortality launched during Mom Congress on Capitol Hill in 2018. In 2019 she worked closely with the Broad Institute and the Boston Globe to create and launch Brave New Planet, a podcast about new technologies and their impact on society.

She was an adjunct assistant professor of public policy at the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University and a Freshman Seminar instructor at Harvard College, teaching on communications in policy making. In 2010, she was awarded a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center at Harvard. She was a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, and an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, on the teaching team for HBS' “Conversations on Leadership" course.

Christine began her career in business strategy consulting for Telesis and SJS – spinoffs of Boston Consulting Group – working on business process analysis, cost analysis, market strategy, and strategic planning for national and international corporations including Corning, Rubbermaid, Ahlstrom, and IKEA. She has served on several boards focused on child development, education, and economic policy, and now serves on the boards of the David Rockefeller Fund and the University of Rhode Island.