During a career spanning 30 years, Senior Counselor Rick Lacroix has crafted tailored communications strategies for Fortune 500 titans, mid-size companies and hypergrowth startups. As a former chief communications officer and senior technology executive at public and private companies, he understands the unmatched power of sharp, messaging bolstered by a well-executed tactical plan.

While serving as as the vice president/head of global communications at Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH), where he was a member of the Fortune 200 company’s executive leadership team, Rick was responsible for creating and leading the communications strategy at the growing, $17 billion business and IT services leader with 280,000+ employees worldwide and practices in multiple industries and markets.

Prior to Cognizant, Rick was the vice president/head of global communications at Progress Software (Nasdaq: PRGS), where he created and executed a successful global communications strategy that elevated brand awareness as part of a strategic rebranding and repositioning of the company into new high-growth markets.

Rick also and most recently served as vice president of corporate communications at Toptal, a leading freelance services platform. Reporting to the CEO of this hypergrowth company, he redesigned the communications function to scale with the business, created and launched a new function responsible for managing public reviews, and orchestrated global public relations, social media, executive communications and industry analyst relations activities.

Earlier, Rick spent 18 years in various PR leadership roles at EMC Corp., a Fortune 500 technology company which later merged with Dell.  During his tenure, he was head of global media relations at VCE – a pioneering joint venture created by VMware, Cisco, EMC and Intel focused on cloud computing infrastructures – and he led EMC’s PR teams and initiatives for the company’s four largest divisions with a combined $14 billion in revenue.

Rick has received numerous industry accolades for PR excellence.  He is a four-time recipient of Magellan Awards from the League of American Communications Professionals; has been awarded two prestigious Gold Bell Ringer awards by The Publicity Club of New England; and received a Bulldog Media Award for Excellence in Media and PR.