Stephen K. Dishart is an internationally experienced financial communication expert, M&A communicator and lecturer providing clients, students and audiences lessons that interconnect his decades of business experience with enthusiasm for delivering meaning when it comes to the challenges facing business and society today. Based in New York, Dishart is a frequent speaker both domestically and internationally. He has authored studies on financial issues and online courses on communication while regularly providing crisis communications seminars in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur.
Dishart is the president of Dishart Communications and Crisis Management Consultants and has worked in both his consulting and previous business roles in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Dishart is a member of the adjunct faculty of Baruch College, City University of New York, and New York University Tandon School of Engineering. He teaches at Fairleigh Dickenson University Silberman College of Business, the Fashion Institute of Technology in the Department of Advertising, Marketing and Communications and for Professional Career Services. He is a senior advisor for the Triana Group, Inc., a Wall Street business firm.
A graduate of the International Executive Programme at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France; Dishart also holds a master’s degree in communications from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from West Virginia University.
Dishart’s consultancy work provides media and speaker training and communications expertise including corporate leadership, mergers and acquisitions, crisis mitigation, reputation management, sensitive-litigation messaging, marketing, media relations, and public affairs. Also, Dishart has a proven track record in the areas of sponsorship, advertising and branding.
In his academic roles, Dishart leverages his practical experience and merges it with texts to provide students with an immersive experience in Public Speaking, Leadership, Media Relations, Corporation Communication, Employee Communication, and in Counseling The Corporation, a course Dishart developed based on his experiences with the C-suites of Fortune 500s. Dishart has also authored online teaching courses for the Open School of Journalism, has guest-lectured for the Thunderbird School of Global Management and conducted communication and crisis seminars at various locations including The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Previously, Dishart was managing director of corporate communications in the Americas for Swiss Re, a leading global reinsurer based in Zurich, Switzerland. Dishart was responsible for Swiss Re's most significant market included the United States, Canada and Latin America. He was the leading communicator for Swiss Re after the September 11, 2001, crisis and managed communications for the litigation that followed. He was also instrumental in the opening of the Brazilian reinsurance market. Before Swiss Re, Dishart was the director of communications for Mellon Financial Corporation, now BNY/Mellon, where he was involved in Mergers & Acquisitions, crisis communications and CEO succession. Dishart began his career as a broadcast journalist.
Dishart is currently on the board of advisors of Corporate Communications International and The Museum of Public Relations and Library. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Baruch College Master of Arts in Corporate Communication.
An accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America, Dishart has served on the board of Green Chimneys Children’s Services and is a past chairman of the Insurance Information Institute’s Communications Council. As president of the board of ArtsWestchester, Dishart led a rebranding. Through Bridges to Community, Dishart helped to build homes and schools in Nicaragua. He is the father of three grown children and resides in in Westchester County, New York.