Senior Policy Fellow
Geoffrey Baum’s career spans education, journalism, and public service.
Together with Geoffrey Cowan, he helped launch the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy in 2007. Most recently, he served as Executive Director for Michelson Philanthropies, where he led organizational restructuring and secured critical state funding, including a $500 million appropriation to establish the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. From 2017 to 2020, he served as Director of Media Relations for the Milken Institute.
A former C-SPAN executive producer, Baum has also worked for Public Radio’s Marketplace and ABC News. He served as Assistant Dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism from 2001-08 and as Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Public Relations at Claremont McKenna College. In 2012, he took on an additional assignment as interim assistant vice president for marketing and public relations at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and Keck Medical Center.
From 2010 to 2017, Baum was Director of Communications and Public Affairs for The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, overseeing strategic initiatives that resulted in three Presidential summits and welcomed more than 500,000 visitors to Sunnylands Center and Gardens.
A passionate advocate for public higher education, Baum served for twelve years on the California Community Colleges Board of Governors, including two terms as president, after gubernatorial appointment and unanimous State Senate confirmation. He was elected three times to the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees, serving two terms as president. Additionally, he is a former board member and president of the Pasadena Community Access Corporation, the city-chartered agency managing Pasadena’s public access television station.
Baum earned his MBA from Fordham University in 2024, an M.A. in Broadcast Journalism from USC, and a B.A. in Economics and Literature from Claremont McKenna College. He currently serves on the boards of the Pasadena City College Foundation and GEO Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving vulnerable communities by operating public schools in Indiana and Louisiana. He resides in Pasadena with his wife, Lisa, and daughter, Amy.
Contact Baum at commlead@usc.edu.