When Courtney Geduldig was growing up in Baltimore, she spent more time at her mother’s “office” than most girls might. Courtney’s late mother, Nancy Funk (1951-2018), was for 30 years the head women’s basketball coach at Johns Hopkins University, so her office would be a team bus, a locker room or gym. As cancer drained her energy, she would still show up for practice, sitting in a folding chair rather than hustling around the court, as coaches do.

Although her mother won more than 500 games at Johns Hopkins, Geduldig says she “never fully understood the role she played in the lives of the young women she coached until she got sick. Suddenly, these young women were flying in from all over the country, just to drive her to her doctors’ appointments or just sit with her when she was doing her chemo. That’s when they would talk about how she had been a surrogate parent to them, helping them through their first year away from home, for example, or through family troubles — deaths or divorces.”

The Council’s 2024-25 Board Chair, Geduldig says her mother “would even help them get jobs after they had graduated. She fought for these young women athletes to get the same treatment male athletes did, but her efforts were dedicated not just to these women as a group, but to them as individuals. And they remembered it.”

A Role Model

Geduldig, who was elected Board Chair at the Council’s Fall Board Meeting in late October, “saw an example of servant leadership” in the way her mother did her job. “She would see to it that women athletes were treated the same as male athletes — she was a crusader for that — and she would always leave a situation better than she found it. She set a high standard that I have tried conscientiously in my own career to live up to.”

Geduldig is the chief corporate affairs officer of National Grid PLC, one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the U.S. and the UK. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a leader in public policy, government, external affairs and public affairs globally. Prior to joining National Grid, she held corporate executive roles leading corporate affairs and government relations at S&P Global, Chime and Micron. She was also managing director and head of global and federal relations at the Financial Services Forum and deputy assistant secretary for domestic policy in legislative affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department, and served as chief financial counsel to Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee.

Having led global teams in the Americas, Europe, Asia and India, Geduldig recognizes the need for public affairs professionals to have an appreciation of the international implications of their work. “Even if your company is totally U.S.-oriented, you need to recognize how the world is increasingly interconnected,” she says. “Unfortunately — and this is something our profession should address — we have a limited set of talent that understands, for example, how decisions made in other countries affect our operations here at home. This is true in even the least developed of developing nations.”

As head of the selection committee that recently chose Nneka Chiazor to succeed Doug Pinkham to be president of the Council, Geduldig says her first priority as Council chair “will be to do everything I can to make sure our new president is successful.” The organization’s track record and reputation, together with Chiazor’s talents, should ensure a bright future for the Council.

‘A Tough Act to Follow’

“Doug Pinkham is a tough act to follow, but those who served on the board with Nneka from 2018 to 2023 and on the executive committee recognize her energy and passion for public affairs are impossible to miss,” Geduldig says. “Nneka is dynamic, charismatic and warm-hearted. She will be terrific, and I look forward to helping her implement her vision for the Council’s future. Of course, I hope my own experience will be an asset to her and to the Council.”

Geduldig’s two decades in public affairs have given her valuable insights into the profession that she is eager to share with younger colleagues.

“I was an English major as an undergraduate, with some ideas about going into journalism and writing, but I wouldn’t trade my law school experience for anything,” she says. “It was there, at the University of Baltimore School of Law, that I learned critical thinking, a skill that really isn’t taught at the undergraduate level. I learned how to do scenario planning, which is increasingly important in public affairs. I learned how to anticipate, to the second and third level, how events might play out and how to respond, so the organization I work for is not simply in a reactive mode. You learn how to plan, so if A happens, we do this. If B happens, we do that. I learned how to develop plans to mitigate possible bad outcomes but also to seize emerging opportunities. This is critical in today’s public affairs world.”