Significant Additions In Strategic Communications And Corporate Partnerships At Anti-Tobacco Public Health Foundation

Public affairs veteran Lindsey Kozberg and corporate partnerships expert Michael Cohen take on newly created roles to support Legacy and its signature truth® campaign

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Legacy

Apr 29, 2015, 10:31 ET

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Legacy announced two additions to its leadership team. Former RAND Corporation external relations chief Lindsey Kozberg, and former Walt Disney Company executive Michael Cohen, step into the newly created roles of Chief Communications Officer and Vice President, Corporate Partnerships at the national nonprofit working to create a tobacco-free culture.

"This is a critical time for our organization," said Legacy CEO and President Robin Koval. "We re-launched our truth campaign last year, and we are contributing to major reductions in teen cigarette use with powerful public education, best in class research and evaluation, and community programs. Lindsey and Michael have the experience and expertise to bring attention and support to our work, and help us make this the generation that ends the tobacco epidemic."

Kozberg's experience spans the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. A former vice president for external affairs at the RAND Corporation, she led the nonprofit research organization's public relations and government relations efforts. Kozberg also served in the George W. Bush administration as director of public affairs at the U.S. Department of Education and as special assistant to the president. A lawyer by training, Kozberg will be Legacy's first chief communications officer, and is charged with building a strategic communications effort that supports Legacy's public education, research and evaluation, and community activism and engagement programs.

Cohen will be Legacy's first vice president, corporate partnerships, and will be responsible for expanding the organization's relationships with for-profit partners with the potential to spread the life-saving messages of Legacy's truth campaign. Cohen comes to Legacy from the Walt Disney Company where he worked since 1996. He most recently served as vice president of alliance management for Disney Corporate Alliances directing Disney's corporate partnerships.

"Lindsey's work in the research arena and across the public sector will help us bring attention to Legacy and our work to speak, seek and spread the truth about tobacco," Koval said. "And Michael's vast experience cultivating corporate relationships will open up new opportunities to bring truth to the youth and young adults who have the power to influence one another and end tobacco use in the United States. Our work is helping to drive down youth cigarette use. With help from Michael and Lindsey, I feel confident we can #FinishIt."

Both Kozberg and Cohen are relocating to Washington D.C. from Southern California.

Legacy

Legacy envisions an America where tobacco is a thing of the past, where all youth and young adults reject tobacco use. Legacy's proven-effective and nationally recognized public education programs include truth®, the national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; and research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. To learn more about Legacy's life-saving programs, visit www.LegacyForHealth.org.

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SOURCE Legacy