Riham El-Lakany

With over 25 years of experience in marketing and communications, Riham has had a track record of driving growth and transformation of organizations; building agile and diverse teams; and serving as a strategic leader in healthcare, insurance, and housing.

Most recently, Riham served as senior vice president and chief marketing and communications officer at BJC HealthCare, a leading health care system with over 42,000 employees, 25 hospitals and $10 billion in revenue. Her responsibilities at BJC included brand; strategic marketing, digital strategies; customer experience; internal communications; executive communications; and media relations.

Prior to joining BJC, Riham was the chief marketing and communications officer for Freddie Mac’s $2.5 trillion single-family business in McLean, Virginia. In this role she led business growth, retention marketing and sales strategies; created a brand repositioning strategy; and devised a comprehensive marketing strategy to drive adoption of technology solutions.

Riham served in several executive marketing and communication roles at Marsh & McLennan; Prudential Financial; Zurich Financial Services; Chubb (formerly ACE Group); and American International Group.

Riham is a member of Ellevate Global Professional Women’s Network and is passionate about developing and advancing talented women in the workplace. She believes multivariate diversity is critical to building an exceptional team—ensuring that organizations are not simply focused on gender, race or ethnicity, but also welcoming of individuals with different life experiences, education levels, communication styles and personalities.

In 2020, Riham was named a Woman of Influence by HousingWire magazine. Ragan Communications, Inc. and PR Daily named her a Top Woman in Communications in 2021.

Riham earned her master’s degree in economics from New York University and her bachelor’s degree in economics from American University in Cairo, Egypt.