Francesca Sterling
Board Member
Trustee, World Affairs
Francesca Sterling has directed marketing and public relations initiatives for Fortune 500 companies in the technology, retail, and medical sectors. She has also overseen not-for-profit projects, most notably for the Dalai Lama and Tibet House.
Sterling’s career began at Diasonics, Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up that manufactured medical imaging equipment. At Broderbund Software, she directed the public relations for over fifteen new product introductions, including the award winning Carmen Sandiego series. Sterling managed public relations projects for Copithorne and Bellows. Based in San Francisco, it was then rated by PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) the number one technology public relation firm in the U.S.
Sterling later founded The Sterling Group. Her clients included many Silicon Valley companies: Hewlett Packard, Silicon Graphics, Apple Computer, Excite @Home, Unisys, Oracle and Genentech whose “Genentech Goes to Town” campaign won a PRSA Silver Anvil Award.
Working with CPMC (California Pacific Medical Center) she directed the PR launch of its then new Department of Integrative Medicine. When the Dalai Lama held his Peace Conference in San Francisco, Sterling co-directed the Public Relations for His Holiness and Tibet House. She helped George Zimmer, Founder, Chairman of the Men’s Wearhouse and his executive team develop an in-house PR department to promote its products to men’s fashion editors and communicate its business initiatives, including its servant leadership philosophy.
In India, where she lived for several years in different cities, she counseled the CEO of Satyavani Group; a real estate developer based in Hyderabad and managed the public relations launch of its first green building project. For Allscripts, a healthcare IT company, Sterling led a women’s leadership training program for women executives based in the company’s Pune branch.
Sterling graduated with a B.A. in Communicative Disorders from California State University, Northridge with honors. At the time, the Communicative Disorders Department was rated in the top five in the U.S. She also received leadership training from The Center for Creative Leadership.