Frederick G. Mann

Fred Mann, vice president of Communications, oversees all external and internal communications strategy and implementation for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A 12-year veteran, he manages a staff handling digital, print, video, speech, and social communications. In conjunction with the heads of other Foundation departments, he creates strategy to elevate the work and promote the building of a Culture of Health.

Before coming to RWJF, Fred spent 23 years with The Philadelphia Inquirer as features editor, Sunday magazine editor, and assistant managing editor. He edited and wrote for two Pulitzer Prize-winning projects for The Inquirer and also created and ran the newspaper’s website, Philly.com, one of the first U.S. newspaper online operations. He served the newspaper’s parent company Knight Ridder as vice president for national programming for the chain’s 28 websites.

Prior to working in Philadelphia, Fred was national editor and later Op-Ed editor of the Hartford Courant. He also created a syndicated West Coast news service that provided coverage to a dozen major papers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Boston Globe, Newsday, Miami Herald, The Plain Dealer, the Detroit Free Press, The Atlanta Constitution, Kansas City Star, and others. He has reported for TIME magazine and served as press secretary for United States Senator Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (R-CT) for three years.

Mann was a founding board member of the Online News Association and formerly served on the board of directors of the Communications Network, the Internet Business Alliance, and the Newspaper Association of America’s New Media Federation. He is a graduate of Stanford University and a father to a blended family of seven children and nine grandchildren.