
Graham Partners offers a full-spectrum of public relations services to enhance reputation, brighten public perception, activate audiences, mitigate risk and improve public policy-making. Programs are fully integrated with marketing programs, legal strategy, employee engagement, government affairs and investor relations. Built upon good writing, messaging, strategy and execution, Graham Partner specialties include health care and pharmacy, retailing, real estate development and public affairs.
Jim Graham, principal of Graham Partners, has worked in public affairs for more than three decades, the past dozen years as a senior leader on communications teams at two major Chicago-based corporations with national footprints. His specialties include issues and crisis management, media relations, government affairs and communications strategies that fully integrate engagement with consumers, employees, business partners, investors and local communities. He is also a book author and contributor to national magazines.
During 2012-2018, he a was a communications and media relations leader at Walgreens. His work included integrated communications related to restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, as the company consolidated its distribution facilities, acquired the 144-store USA Drug Pharmacy chain, and took joint ownership with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of the CFF specialty pharmacy business. Prior to 2012 he was a communications senior director at General Growth Properties when that company went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At both Walgreens and GGP, Graham was a senior leader on teams creating strategies for coordinated communications with customers, employees, vendors, investors and affected communities.
Graham was a senior advisor, publicist and speechwriter to former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and has been a public affairs consultant to not-for-profit organizations, economic development interests and corporations. He was deputy director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, where he oversaw business retention and attraction for the state’s principal economic development agency. He was also head of communications at the Illinois House of Representatives.
Graham is the author of Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea, University Press of New England, 2014. It was featured by international media, including the New York Times, CBS Radio Network, National Public Radio affiliates, French TV and on three national magazine covers. It was a Chicago Book Review “Best Books of 2014” and an August 2014 selection of “Chapter A Day®” on Wisconsin Public Radio, read on-air over 10 days on 28 stations. Graham has spoken to audiences coast-to-coast, in Germany, aboard RMS Queen Mary II and at four Kennedy museums, including the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. The book is available in German translation. Graham has also contributed articles to Time and Huffington Post.
Jim Graham, principal of Graham Partners, has worked in public affairs for more than three decades, the past dozen years as a senior leader on communications teams at two major Chicago-based corporations with national footprints. His specialties include issues and crisis management, media relations, government affairs and communications strategies that fully integrate engagement with consumers, employees, business partners, investors and local communities. He is also a book author and contributor to national magazines.
During 2012-2018, he a was a communications and media relations leader at Walgreens. His work included integrated communications related to restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, as the company consolidated its distribution facilities, acquired the 144-store USA Drug Pharmacy chain, and took joint ownership with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of the CFF specialty pharmacy business. Prior to 2012 he was a communications senior director at General Growth Properties when that company went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At both Walgreens and GGP, Graham was a senior leader on teams creating strategies for coordinated communications with customers, employees, vendors, investors and affected communities.
Graham was a senior advisor, publicist and speechwriter to former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and has been a public affairs consultant to not-for-profit organizations, economic development interests and corporations. He was deputy director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, where he oversaw business retention and attraction for the state’s principal economic development agency. He was also head of communications at the Illinois House of Representatives.
Graham is the author of Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea, University Press of New England, 2014. It was featured by international media, including the New York Times, CBS Radio Network, National Public Radio affiliates, French TV and on three national magazine covers. It was a Chicago Book Review “Best Books of 2014” and an August 2014 selection of “Chapter A Day®” on Wisconsin Public Radio, read on-air over 10 days on 28 stations. Graham has spoken to audiences coast-to-coast, in Germany, aboard RMS Queen Mary II and at four Kennedy museums, including the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. The book is available in German translation. Graham has also contributed articles to Time and Huffington Post.