2024 MATRIX HONOREE

JENNIFER LOWNEY

Global Head of Communications, Citi

Jennifer Lowney has more than 20 years of experience counseling companies on strategic challenges that affect reputation, valuation and business success.

Jennifer joined Citi in 2014, serving as the Head of Corporate Communications through 2020. In 2020, she became the Head of Business and Corporate Communications, and in 2022, she became Global Head of Communications, responsible for a 300-person team that supports Citi’s reputation in nearly 100 countries. She continues to serve as Citi’s chief spokesperson.

In her role, Jennifer has built and maintained a transparent and consistent framework for how the firm articulates its priorities and builds buy-in from stakeholders. She has advised the CEO and senior management through major events including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 banking turmoil. Most recently, she’s led the communications of the firm’s multi-year transformation efforts that include the largest reorganization in decades.

Jennifer joined Citi from the Brunswick Group, where she helped build the firm’s U.S. operations. Over the course of her career her work has included advising on IPOs for Visa, Facebook, Hilton Worldwide and King.com (makers of Candy Crush); and the reorganizations/bankruptcies of Hawker Beechcraft, MGM Studios, Owens Corning, MCI/WorldCom and Enron. She also has experience supporting corporate transactions including Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus; Pfizer’s acquisitions of Wyeth and King Pharmaceuticals; and eBay’s proxy fight with activist investor Carl Icahn.

A New Jersey native, Jennifer lives in Hoboken with her husband and three children. She finds most joy in watching football and college basketball with her family and spending time at the beach. She graduated from Seton Hall University with a Masters Degree in Corporate and Public Communications.

Presenting the Matrix Award to Jennifer Lowney

STEVEN LIPIN

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Gladstone Place Partners

Steve Lipin is founder and chief executive officer of communications advisory firm Gladstone Place Partners and a trusted advisor in the field of strategic, financial and corporate governance communications. Steve has spent over 35 years at the intersection of the corporate world, Wall Street and the media, as a leading financial journalist and top communications strategist to C-Suites and boards of directors. Steve started Gladstone Place Partners in 2017 after 16 years at Brunswick Group, where he was U.S. Senior Partner. Steve also teaches an M&A class at Berkeley Law.

At Gladstone Place Partners, Steve has worked on assignments such as Take-Two Interactive’s $12.7 billion acquisition of Zynga, 3G’s $7.1 billion acquisition of Hunter Douglas, Acceleron Pharma’s $11.5 billion sale to Merck, Dunkin Brands’ $11 billion sale to Inspire Brands, The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets, Churchill IV’s combination with Lucid Motors, as well as others. Steve has worked on many landmark M&A deals such as InBev’s acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, AB InBev’s acquisitions of Grupo Modelo and of SAB Miller, Air Liquide’s purchase of Airgas, Marriott International’s acquisition of Starwood, Burger King’s combination with Tim Horton’s, American Airlines’ sale to US Airways and many others.

He has also advised many companies on shareholder activist defense and shareholder engagements, including The Walt Disney Company, AT&T, Illumina, Duke Energy, Marriott, Heinz, PepsiCo, Yahoo!, Macy’s, AIG, Freeport-McMoRan and Arconic, among others.

Before communications, Steve spent 17 years in financial journalism, 10 of which were at The Wall Street Journal. Steve was the Journal’s Finance Editor, supervising the paper’s coverage of mergers, commercial banking, private equity and corporate finance, after five years as the M&A beat reporter during which he was nominated for a Pulitzer. He joined the Journal in 1991 to cover banking after stints at Institutional Investor and American Banker.

Born in New York City, Steve graduated from Boston College with a bachelor’s degree in Economics. He is a board member of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, the Columbia Journalism Review and of Youth INC. He has three children and lives in New York City with his wife.