In this role, Hankes, a longtime communications executive, and entrepreneur in the journalism space, will be charged with developing and executing an integrated global corporate communications strategy that will successfully reinforce the company’s business objectives.
As Chief Communications Officer, he will report to Forbes’ CEO, Mike Federle, and collaborate closely with the editorial, human resources, marketing, product, sales and technology teams to ensure all external and internal messaging aligns with the Forbes brand strategy and mission.
“Forbes represents the marriage of two personal passions, journalism and entrepreneurship,” said Hankes. “I’m incredibly excited to be joining this world-class team, whose pioneering vision has built upon one of the most storied mastheads in media to create a brand whose voice now reaches larger and more diverse audiences globally.”
I’m a huge believer that communications is a critical part of any successful organization.
Mike Federle
“Hankes embodies the entrepreneurial spirit and journalistic point-of-view that Forbes was founded upon and will leverage his strong communications experience to develop and drive our corporate, brand, product and internal communications,” said Mike Federle, Forbes CEO. “I’m a huge believer that communications is a critical part of any successful organization, and Hankes will play an important role in shaping our culture, brand, products and overall business.”
In the entrepreneurial spirit that Forbes champions, says the company, Hankes is an entrepreneur himself and is founder of Sqoop, a news discovery service used in newsrooms around the world.
Before founding Sqoop, he served as the senior communications executive and spokesman for both emerging growth and publicly traded technology and media companies. Most recently he was Director of Bing Public Relations at Microsoft and before that Vice President of Corporate Communications for RealNetworks. He has spoken regularly at journalism conferences including the SABEW Government Data Immersion Workshop, NICAR and IRE.
Hankes’ experience includes overseeing hundreds of global product launches, high-stakes litigation, crisis and reputation management, corporate acquisitions worth more than $1 billion, public-equity transactions worth more than $500 million and working on campaigns in more than 20 countries.
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