John D. Trybus is a social strategist on a mission to help impact organizations embrace the blur—between sectors, functions, departments and human strengths—for good.
He leads Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact Communication, a research and action center working to ignite the power of responsible marketers, communicators, fundraisers, and journalists to combine their strengths within an organization in order to drive societal change. John is charged with directing all of the Center’s operations, strategy, partnerships, research and curriculum.
A purposeful integrator himself, John’s career journey has spanned sectors in pursuit of making impact.
A life-changing encounter with world-famous chimpanzee expert and United Nations Messenger of Peace Dr. Jane Goodall led him to become her personal advisor at the Jane Goodall Institute. He traveled nonstop with the environmental rockstar on her perpetual 300-day-per-year advocacy tour that took them around the globe, working to inspire people to conserve the natural world we all share by realizing that every individual makes a difference. Whiskey–with a spot of water from the tap, per Jane’s request–was the fuel that kept the tour going city-after-city.
John has also served as a strategist at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., and within Waggener Edstrom Worldwide’s (now WE Communications) social innovation practice, advising clients like Tiffany & Co., L’Oreal Paris, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Women for Women International and CARE on social responsibility.
A professor of social impact at Georgetown University, John is also a highly sought-after speaker and trainer whose Chicago accent always travels with him.