Michael Law and the value of a very long introduction

The first client meeting of Michael Law’s career contained an introduction that would still matter more than thirty years later. It happened at the Chlorine Institute in Washington, D.C. One of the people there was David Donaldson. Law remembered the encounter long enough to mention it when Donaldson joined Summit Strategy Group, the company Law had founded in 2017.

By then, Law had worked across Asia, led Ogilvy’s western U.S. operations and served as U.S. CEO of Burson-Marsteller. The firms and titles had changed. Donaldson remained a friend and professional colleague. A first meeting had acquired a remarkably long second act.

Law’s recollection was affectionate and specific. He named other people who had been in the room, too. There is something rather appealing about a communications executive remembering the attendance list three decades afterward. The business card may have disappeared. The introduction had done its job.

That episode offers a way into Law’s career: follow the people. They connect the large agencies he helped run to the independent firms he later helped build.

Twenty-two years, three very different maps

Law was born and raised in Scotland. He is an Eagle Scout, an outdoorsman and, according to his professional biography, married with three daughters. His education includes a psychology degree from West Virginia University. The work that followed would carry him through several distinct centers of corporate and political influence.

At Ogilvy, he spent a decade in Washington before serving four years as president of its public relations operations in Southeast Asia. In 2004, he took charge of Ogilvy West. By the time he moved on in 2013, he had spent twenty-two years with the agency.

Washington, Southeast Asia and California make an instructive itinerary for someone whose business is understanding audiences. Each assignment placed Law in a different setting, with different institutions and expectations around him. His later biography also records senior work in China.

Ogilvy’s farewell supplied a personal detail alongside the appointments. Christopher Graves described him as “a man of vision and decency” and mentioned his enthusiasm for mountain climbing. This was four years before Law launched a company called Summit. The outdoor vocabulary had already found its way into the office.

A technical problem gets an audience

Law joined Burson-Marsteller in 2013 as U.S. president and subsequently became U.S. CEO. His work there included the familiar executive task of choosing other executives. Stephen Naru returned to the agency in 2014 to lead U.S. media relations. Jodi Brooks became U.S. technology practice chair in 2016, reporting to Law.

Those appointments put different kinds of expertise around the same table: the changing media business, technology companies and the demands of corporate clients. In welcoming Brooks, Law emphasized her work developing the next generation of talent as well as building the practice. Running an advisory business meant paying attention to who would do the advising.

Cybersecurity provided a more pointed example of the connection between a specialist subject and its public consequences. In December 2015, Burson-Marsteller announced an alliance with Ridge Global, the security firm associated with former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

The proposed services included risk assessments, incident response planning, identifying affected audiences and spokesperson training. Law emphasized that the way executives respond to an attack can affect a company’s reputation and financial results. A data breach may begin inside a system; the response involves people well beyond it.

His interest in corporate trust also appeared in a Colombian newspaper’s account of his views on governance. He argued that businesses had struggled to keep pace with changing audience expectations, including expectations about environmental and social responsibility. Greater transparency and access to information, he maintained, could help rebuild confidence.

Starting again, with familiar people

January 2017 brought a change. Burson-Marsteller appointed Mike Fernandez U.S. CEO, and Law became worldwide executive vice president. His new responsibilities included major client assignments and new business, working with worldwide president Kevin Bell.

Later that year, he founded Summit Strategy Group in California. Its organizing idea was to assemble a team for the needs of each client. The firm brought together expertise in public affairs, communications and sustainability, with work spanning such sectors as natural resources, energy, agriculture and higher education.

The following year brought another venture. Law and Michael Sessums launched IBEX Partners in Washington. They had worked together at Burson-Marsteller, where Sessums had been a managing director and international team leader in public affairs and crisis work. Sessums’s background also included diplomatic service and work in the Obama White House.

IBEX’s initial areas included environment and land use, privacy and security, supply chains and international public affairs. Law led its environmental, sustainability and land use practice while continuing to run Summit. The new businesses gave their founders ways to work together outside their former agency.

In May 2018, Summit and IBEX formed a strategic partnership with European consultancy BoldT. Another former Burson colleague, Jeremy Galbraith, was among BoldT’s founders. The alliance connected California and Washington with European operations, including access to Brussels.

For Law, the rationale included helping international clients understand California and the western United States as American politics became more polarized. The geography of his earlier career was finding a new business arrangement. Familiar colleagues could now collaborate across several independent firms.

Building a firm one appointment at a time

At Summit, the hiring announcements gradually described the company taking shape. In 2019, Ryan Rauzon joined to lead public affairs. His experience included communications at infrastructure company AECOM, public affairs at Apollo Education Group and work at Ogilvy and Dewey Square Group. Derek Young joined to lead sustainability and stakeholder engagement, bringing experience from FedEx Office and TGI Fridays.

The appointments placed corporate communications and sustainability work alongside one another. They also brought experience from inside businesses into the consultancy. Advising an organization about its audiences requires some understanding of what happens inside the organization after the meeting ends.

In 2022, Summit appointed Leslie Llewellyn Capstraw as its first chief operating officer. Her remit included operations, client engagement and recruiting and retaining staff. She had run Weber Shandwick’s Los Angeles office and held leadership roles at Ogilvy. A firm assembled around expertise also needed someone attending to how the business itself operated.

The next year, Summit added Michael Dupee as a senior adviser. His background crossed Goldman Sachs, corporate responsibility at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and teaching in the University of Vermont’s Sustainable Innovation MBA program. Law highlighted the usefulness of academic and commercial experience in advising companies about environmental, social and governance questions.

Erica Swerdlow joined as a managing director in June 2023 to lead client development and growth initiatives. She had founded EBS Public Relations and held leadership roles at Burson-Marsteller and Porter Novelli. Law pointed to her experience launching, selling and growing businesses. For a founder, having another person in the room who has built a company is a practical qualification.

Read together, these appointments show several kinds of work behind a consultancy’s public identity: advising clients, understanding their industries, finding new assignments and keeping the organization running. They also show Law repeatedly choosing people with substantial careers of their own.

The Pacific returns to the picture

In September 2025, Summit added Scott Kronick as a senior adviser. Kronick had spent more than twenty-five years based in Beijing and helped build Ogilvy’s public relations business in China. His other roles included teaching at USC Annenberg and chairing the advisory board of the university’s U.S.-China Institute.

For a founder whose earlier career had included Southeast Asia and China, the appointment brought a familiar region back into focus. Summit described Kronick’s contribution in terms of cross-border challenges, corporate reputation and Asia-Pacific work. Law linked the decision to the difficulty of separating business strategy from public perception across the Pacific.

Later that month, Nina Dater joined the Washington office as public affairs director. She brought experience from Zeno Group and Red Flag Consulting, including work on sustainability, chemicals and consumer packaged goods regulation. Law emphasized the value of her presence in Washington alongside the California team.

Both appointments concerned distance: between countries in one case, between the federal capital and California in the other. They also concerned access to people who understood the particular environment in which a client needed to operate.

“A regulatory challenge can quickly become a reputational one.”

Michael Law

The next step in front of him

Law describes Summit’s name through the discipline of climbing and the perspective he finds away from work. In his account, the appeal includes being off the grid and concentrating on the step immediately ahead. It is a pleasantly modest detail for a company named after the top of a mountain.

His stated ambition was to bring that discipline and thoughtfulness to clients’ difficult situations. He also sees public policy, sustainability and communications becoming more closely connected. Technology changes how organizations communicate and how audiences find information; he continues to emphasize judgment and trusted relationships.

The Donaldson story gives those words a human scale. One person remembered another from the beginning of his working life. Years later, there was a place for him in the company he had built. A career can be measured in titles and territories. Sometimes its most revealing measure is the introduction that still matters.