Kirsty Graham is the CEO of Edelman U.S.
Kirsty was formerly the Global President of Edelman’s Practices and Sectors, overseeing strategy and development for Edelman’s global Brand and Corporate practices, the global Impact & ESG team, as well as our global sectors: Health, Technology, Energy and Food & Beverage.
Kirsty also served as the Global Chair of Health, a role she has held from January 2020 when she first joined Edelman in 2020 to February 2023. During that time, she helped drive significant sector growth. Today, the global Health sector has transformed to become the firm’s largest sector.
Graham has lived in the United States for 24 years and has engaged with business, government, media and civil society in the course of her career. Prior to Edelman, Graham spent 10 years at Pfizer Inc, where she served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs for their Biopharmaceuticals Group. In that role she oversaw policy, public affairs and communications for Pfizer’s medicines business, operating in more than 125 countries with a portfolio of more than 600 products generating approximately three-quarters of the company’s revenue. Graham was previously SVP, Global Policy and International Public Affairs at Pfizer.
Earlier in her career, Kirsty spent 16 years in the New Zealand Foreign Service working on a wide range of economic, security and trade policy issues with responsibilities spanning bilateral relations with China, Japan, and the United States. Her diplomatic assignments included a secondment to support the Foreign Minister, Sir Don McKinnon (1994 to 1996), a five-year posting to Washington, DC (1996-2000), a secondment as Deputy Spokesperson at the British Embassy in Washington (2001), and five years as New Zealand’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations (2006-2010).
Kirsty is a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board (CED). In 2021, Kirsty participated as a World Economic Forum panelist and was honored this same year by being named in PRWeekly as Top 30 Health Influencer.
She holds a BA in English Literature and a postgraduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Otago.