Chuck Wallington, Ph.D.
Chuck Wallington is an Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for Cone Health – a healthcare system based in Greensboro, NC. Wallington reports to the CEO and is one of 10 members of Cone Health’s senior-most leadership team that establishes and drives the business strategy for Cone. As Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Wallington leads the team that develops and implements the marketing and communications strategy that supports Cone Health’s business strategy.
Prior to joining Cone Health in 2011, Wallington worked for American Express where he was a director then a vice president of communications. In his role as a vice president, Wallington had global responsibility for the team that provided internal and external communications support for the American Express customer service centers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and India.
Prior to joining American Express, Wallington held public relations and communications roles at Nabisco Brands and at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. He started his career with a brief role as a newspaper reporter in Detroit, Michigan and in Dallas, Texas.
Wallington earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After working for many years, he returned to the classroom while working full time and earned a master’s degree in communications management from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in 2017. His capstone research, “Barriers, Borders and Boundaries: Exploring why there are so few African-American males in the public relations profession,” was named one of the Top 15 Public Relations Research Insights of 2020 by PR Journal.
Wallington also earned a Ph.D. in Leadership Studies from North Carolina A&T State University in 2021. His dissertation is titled “Navigating the C-Suite: Exploring the leadership journeys of African-American male executives in U.S. corporations.” This research highlights the lived experiences of 30 African American male executives and their journeys to the C-Suite. His dissertation is now a book titled “A Seat at the C-Suite Table: Insights from the leadership journeys of African American Executives.”
Wallington is a 2024 recipient of the Betsy Plank Award for lifetime commitment to mentoring students and professionals in the field of public relations. He also is a 2024 Black History Maker Award winner from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. In 2023, Wallington received the D. Parke Gibson Pioneer Award from the Public Relations Society of America. This award is given to a public relations professional who has helped increase the awareness of the field within multicultural communities and who has helped promote issues and solutions to meet the needs of those professional communities. Wallington also is a 2022 recipient of the Robert S. Abbott Memorial Award for Meritorious Service in Mass Communications from the Savannah State University.
Wallington is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society. He also serves on the boards of the Institute for Public Relations, the Diversity Action Alliance, and the Museum for Public Relations. Civically, Wallington is an active Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.