Director, Communications Committee chair

Chairman and Chief Experience Officer at Slack Barshinger

Gary Slack is chairman and chief experience officer of Slack Barshinger, an integrated marketing communications agency that works exclusively with business-to-business marketers to build strong business brands and generate profitable demand for their products and services. Founded in 1988, the 50-person firm serves national and global clients out of its headquarters office in Chicago and a branch office in Silicon Valley and in concert with several global agency networks. The Business Marketing Association has named Slack Barshinger its national Agency of the Year three times in the past eight years, and Crain’s BtoB magazine has named Slack Barshinger a Top 3 national agency for five of the past seven years. For five consecutive years, BtoB magazine also has named Gary to its annual list of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Business-to-Business Marketing.” Gary served as president of the Chicago chapter of the Business Marketing Association in 2001-03 and again this past year. He also has served as vice chairman of the national BMA organization in 2008-09, and he will become BMA’s national chairman at BMA’s national conference in June 2009. Locally, Gary also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Economic Club of Chicago, and for two years in a row he has been named to the annual “Who’s Who in Chicago” list published by Crain’s Chicago Business. Before starting Slack Barshinger at the age of 33, he worked for 10 years with Omnicom agencies Porter Novelli and Doremus & Co. in both Washington, DC, and Chicago. Prior to entering the agency world, he was a newspaper reporter in his home state of New Mexico. He graduated in 1976 with a B.A. in economics from Dartmouth College. He and his wife, a creative director at Slack Barshinger, have two sons in their early 20s and now live peacefully in Winnetka, IL.