Bruce Hennes

Practice Areas

Hennes Communications manages an average of 200 client engagements annually, providing strategic counsel to a diverse range of organizations facing high-stakes issues. Our clients include local, regional, and state government agencies; arts, cultural, and religious institutions; major foundations and nonprofit organizations; K-12 public, private, independent, and parochial schools; colleges and universities; and healthcare systems—including hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living communities, and agencies serving individuals with developmental disabilities.

In addition, we serve a wide array of industries, including chemicals, manufacturing, transportation, construction, and financial services—spanning banking, private equity, and investment firms. Our work is frequently conducted in collaboration with attorneys specializing in litigation, labor and employment, human resources and labor relations, construction law, transportation law, nonprofit law, admiralty and maritime law, education law, healthcare law, and many other sub-specialties.

Regardless of sector or situation, our team brings deep experience in guiding clients through reputation-threatening events, regulatory investigations, data breaches and cybersecurity incidents, leadership transitions, crisis-level media scrutiny, and matters involving criminal or civil litigation. We understand that in every case—whether in the courtroom or in the Court of Public Opinion—credibility and trust are assets that must be carefully protected and strategically managed.

Career

Bruce M. Hennes leads Hennes Communications, one of the few North American firms focused on crisis communications, crisis management and litigation communications.

Following years in political campaigns and nonprofit leadership, Hennes opened his firm in 1989. Under his leadership, Hennes Communications is now ranked among the top 18 U.S. crisis PR firms by Chambers and Partners, the world’s leading independent legal research company.

The firm’s past and present clients include the American Public Power Association, Avery Dennison, Goodyear, ThyssenKrupp, Evonik, NASA, Interlake Steamship Company, University Hospitals, Kent State University, Lubrizol, Northeast Ohio Medical University and The Riverside Company, as well as scores of law firms, corporations, schools (public, private, parochial, independent), senior care communities, hospitals, universities, nonprofits, and government agencies. Its assignments span the U.S. and have included work in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, Canada, and Japan.

Hennes Communications is a two-time winner of the Public Relations Society of America’s Silver Anvil Award — the PR industry’s highest honor — for its work with the non-partisan Cleveland Host Committee for the 2016 Republican National Convention. The firm also serves as the preferred provider of crisis communications services to the Consortium of State School Boards Associations representing over 7,100 public school systems in 25 states.

A nationally recognized specialist in crisis communications and litigation communications, Hennes is a frequent speaker and trainer for bar associations, legal and trade groups, elected officials and leaders in law enforcement, healthcare and education. He is especially noted for his work on crisis situations involving threats to life and safety and is a frequent speaker at emergency management conferences. He publishes Crisis Communications Today, a twice-monthly, award-winning newsletter with over 8,000 subscribers.

For more than 17 years, Hennes has served on the board and executive committee of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association (CMBA). Distinctively, he is one of just a few non-attorneys to sit on the board of a major metropolitan bar association in the US. He has twice received the CMBA President’s Award and he teaches in the Ohio State Bar Association’s Leadership Academy. He is also a four-time keynoter for the ABA’s Bar Leadership Institute and on the faculty of the Winding River Managing Partner Bootcamp. Each year, Hennes delivers more than 40 CLE programs to law firms and bar associations nationwide.

Honors include Communicator of the Year from the International Association of Business Communicators, inclusion in PRNews' "50 Game-Changers of PR," and recognition for his crisis work on a New York City ferry disaster. He has been named to Lawdragon’s 100 Leading Consultants and Strategists list six years in a row and inducted into the Lawdragon Hall of Fame. He is also a National Law Review “Go-To Thought Leader” and has been named numerous times to The Cleveland 500 by Cleveland Magazine and as a Notable Leader in Communications by Crain’s Cleveland Business.

Hennes is past chair of the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s public affairs committee and The Cleveland Jewish News. He is an associate professor at Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication, adjunct professor at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs, and an instructor for the Ohio Certified Public Manager Program.

A member of The 50 Club of Cleveland, comprised of the city’s top CEOs, he holds a degree in political science from York University (Toronto) and certifications in effective crisis communication from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FEMA.

Publications

In 2002, we debuted our newsletter, Crisis Communications Today, distributed twice a month. Besides focusing on crisis communications and crisis management, the newsletter offers an eclectic mix of articles and links on subjects as varied as apologies, management transitions, body language, writing and grammar, dealing with editors and reporters, social media, fake news, online trolls, the effective use of Zoom and other subjects. Today, our award-winning newsletter has a circulation of 8,000, a list that includes more than 3,500 attorneys.

The May, 2025 issue of the Bar Journal, published by the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, includes an article written by Bruce Hennes, "Not Just for Lawyers: Standing Up for the Rule of Law."

Over the last few years, the National Law Review published a dozen articles written by Hennes personnel. And the American Bar Association’s Bar Journal Magazine interviewed Bruce Hennes and Thom Fladung on the subject of “iterative journalism."

The January 2025 issue of The Bar Journal, includes two articles written by Bruce Hennes: “Blake Lively Lawsuit Highlights Distinction Between Crisis Communications and Traditional PR” and “Crisis Communications, Ethics and the Boardroom.” “Crisis Communications Lessons from the Tragic Assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO,” was published by Crain’s Cleveland Business.

The September, 2024 issue of Crain’s Cleveland Business included “Boar's Head's Case Highlights Coldness of Corporate Apologies."

The April, 2022 issue of The Bar Journal, included “The Rule of Law and the Role of Lawyers” written by Bruce Hennes.

All of the articles referenced above, including hundreds of articles written by members of the Hennes Communications staff, as well as a number of curated articles from a wide variety of publications, can be seen here (keyword searchable): www.authory.com/crisiscommunications .

Awards