Carla R. Michelotti

Michelotti has a distinguished record of leadership, international strategic marketing insight and global legal expertise anticipating issues and successfully assisting multinational companies navigating through those sensitive and significant challenges. Her professional experiences in marketing, branding, advertising, digital, intellectual property, commercial speech, privacy, litigation, and multinational M&A issues place her as one of the advertising industry’s foremost legal authorities. She has played an exceptional role in developing advocacy strategies for the advertising industry around the world and is frequently invited to speak before industry leadership about advertising and e-commerce issues.

At the birth of the Internet, Michelotti was first to identify the need to meet with the White House and key EU leadership, to discuss Internet marketing legal issues, and she then led those first key meetings. She also organized the first “global summits” of advertising self-regulators and industry leadership to address anticipated “cross-border” advertising international issues. She is well recognized for her privacy and consumer marketing regulatory expertise and has been instrumental in the creation of industry policies regarding commercial free speech, privacy, food & beverage advertising, intellectual property and advertising self-regulation.

Michelotti has received numerous honors including: Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from DePaul University, Anti-Defamation League’s Women of Achievement Award, AAF Barton A. Cummings Gold Medal, Chicago Advertising Federation Silver Medal, International Advertising Association (IAA) Medal of Achievement, IAA “Champion” Award, Chicago Catholic Lawyer of the Year Award, Justinian Bar Association Award of Excellence, DePaul Outstanding Service to the Profession Award, was named “Chicago Ad Woman of the Year” and was listed in the “Today’s Chicago Woman Hall of Fame”.

Michelotti currently sits on the Boards of DePaul University, the AAF, the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council, the European Advertising Standards Authority, the IAA, Athena International, The Chicago Network, Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and NW Indiana, Illinois Bar Foundation, Junior Achievement of Chicago and The House of the Good Shepherd. She is a past Chairman of the AAF, the Vice-Chairman of the Marketing Committee of the U.S. Council for International Business and a VP of the IAA Global Executive Committee. She is an ABA and Illinois Bar Fellow and an active member of the Illinois, Chicago and American Bar Associations.

After a long and successful career, Michelotti retired from Leo Burnett in October 2015. She is currently providing strategic regulatory consulting. Before Leo Burnett Company, Michelotti was an attorney with Jewel Companies, Inc. She has a B.A. in political science and a Juris Doctor, both from DePaul University.