Chris Barker is a Connected Car/Transportation Technology Consultant and Founder for CBC Consulting. He is focused on advocating the role of technology in advancing the modernization of transportation and urban mobility. Chris provides business, communications and public policy consulting support to automakers, aerospace companies, suppliers, technology companies, investment firms and government organizations around the globe. Chris has provided consulting support to companies/organizations such as, AAA, Boeing, Bosch, BMW, Chrysler-Fiat, Delphi, Ford, Honeywell, Hyundai, Teradata, United States Department of Transportation, Visteon, Vulcan and more. Chris has been a transportation technology advisor for the recent USDOT/Vulcan Smart City Challenge focused on advancing smart city transportation innovation in cities across the US.
Chris has also supported the C3 Group and led the development of six major connected car conferences across the US. In addition, Chris has been a Connected Car/Future of Mobility keynote/panel speaker at CES (Las Vegas), SXSW (Austin), RSA (San Francisco), CE Week (New York), A-Bace (Shanghai) and IAA (Frankfurt). Chris has served as an executive board member on the Connected Car Council comprised of automotive and transportation technology leaders from across North America. Chris is also on the Board of Directors for the Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT) responsible for advancing improved commuter transportation options for commuters across the US.
Before starting CBC Consulting and supporting the C3 Group, Chris was a senior vice president at Waggener Edstrom Communications. He led the Waggener Edstrom Connected Car/Transportation team focused on driving effective business-focused communications in the rapidly evolving connected car and broader transportation markets. He also led business development and marketing for Waggener Edstrom’s North America operations.
Chris joined Waggener Edstrom from Honeywell Aerospace where he was the global director of communications and business development responsible for driving communications, marketing and product development across the company’s global defense, commercial and business aviation segments. Prior to joining Honeywell, Chris was a senior communications manager at Cisco Systems where he led all communications, marketing and new market development around the company’s $14B global public sector business including federal, state and local government, defense/security, education, healthcare and smart and connected cities. His previous experience includes corporate communications and executive speechwriting for the Office of the President at Boeing and press relations and issues management for US Congressman Tom Petri (R-WI).
He serves on the board of the American Marketing Association and is a four time recipient of national PR Award honors in the categories of crisis management/issues management, business campaign of the year and mid-size company PR campaign of the year.
