Pete Wentz, Executive Director of APCO’s Chicago office, provides clients with expertise in corporate reputation, crisis, financial and litigation communication and strategic planning. He also has extensive experience in higher education, particularly with law schools. A lawyer by training, Mr. Wentz has provided crisis and litigation communication for a and corporate reputation services to some of world’s best-known companies and brands, including Kellogg Company, Harley-Davidson, Trader Joe’s, E-Trade, Whirlpool, Exxon Mobil and Northwestern University.
His most recent projects have including representing a major sports organization whose leaders, who subsequently left, allegedly were involved in covering up sexual abuse. He has also worked with colleges and universities and other clients facing regulatory and reputational challenges from the Administration, litigation between major companies and product recalls. Mr. Wentz has provided financial communication consulting on a variety of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, sales of subsidiaries and businesses, bankruptcies, corporate governance and executive compensations.
Mr. Wentz has provided strategic planning and communication consulting services to several of the nation’s leading universities and has also developed and implemented communication programs for several law firms.
For 17 years, Mr. Wentz served as vice president of corporate communication and law for Helene Curtis Industries, Inc., a Fortune 500 company, where he led all aspects of the company’s public relations program, including reputation management, investor relations and crisis communication.
Mr. Wentz was the associate dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where he was responsible for strategic planning and public relations. He continues to teach a course that includes understanding the role of inside counsel and crisis management and the law. In addition, Mr. Wentz served as an attorney at Sidley Austin and a legislative assistant to Senator Joseph R. Biden.
Mr. Wentz is a graduate of Trinity College and received his law degree from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
He is married with three children, one of whom is the face of the band Fall Out Boy.
