Josh Baran has been wielding mindful communications to advance social change for three decades — long before it was professionally fashionable.
“Part visionary, part activist, part PR savant but always 100% committed and focused on helping people clearly see positive options in the face of global and local threats, Josh Baran nearly invented the practice of cause-related marketing.”
About Josh
Josh has been a communications and public relations professional since 1982. He is best known for his work in the areas of public affairs, entertainment and films, non-profit communications, crisis management, publishing, environment, technology, neuroscience, and religion. He heads up Baran Strategies, his own consultancy and communications network in New York.
“In the twenty years I’ve known Josh, he’s worked in technology and mindfulness, he’s worked on PR and communication strategies for movements, films, and for spiritual leaders, celebrities, and authors, including the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa, Dan Goleman, and Andrew Weil, .Josh has made significant contributions to the progress integrative medicine and mindfulness/meditation practices have made into the mainstream conversation.”
Through the Gate of Social Change
Josh entered this career through the gateway of social change and harnessing media and communications for the greater good. It has been his joy to work with visionaries, change makers, revolutionaries and evolutionaries, Nobel Prize winners, sages and true geniuses. Long before disruption became a buzz word, Josh was creating innovative campaigns, using media in ways that had never been done before. Josh has an innate ability to navigate complex situations, stay calm and focused in the midst of chaos, and find unique methods to either make waves or ride waves… for the public good.
During his long and varied career, Josh has served a broad range of clients, organizations, companies, and leaders — from Bill Gates and Larry Ellison to Meryl Streep and the Dalai Lama; from Time Warner, Miramax and Sony Pictures to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and Amnesty International; from Earth Day 1990, Newsweek Magazine, Paramount Pictures and Fox Searchlight to managing communications for ground-breaking cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the documentary and book on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. For nearly 30 years, Josh has assisted with the communications for many of the visits of the Dalai Lama to the United States.
“Josh has long been one of the smartest minds in publicity and among the best connectors of smart, influential people. When it comes time to launch a project, I greatly value his advice.”
Josh brings to the table decades of deep and wide experience along with wisdom and insight. For most of his life, he has been a serious student of Buddhism and other wisdom traditions and a longtime practitioner of mindfulness / meditation. He has worked with great teachers of insight, from the Dalai Lama to Daniel Goleman. He realized early on that ageless insights can and must be applied not only to our daily lives but also our professional behavior and practices. Our personal values cannot be apart from our professional actions.
One of his special areas of expertise is the intersection between entertainment and political, social and religious issues. Josh has provided special communications guidance and outreach to dozens of films – from major Hollywood features to small independent films to controversial and socially-relevant documentaries. He was the first media specialist to master the art of marketing a provocative film. To his film projects, Josh brings real world insights and connections, and to his public affairs campaigns, he brings a creative edge.
Josh has lectured / spoken at the Sundance Film Festival, the Annenberg School for Communications (University of Pennsylvania), Tribeca Film Festival, Esalen Institute, and the Social Venture Network. He has been interviewed and quoted by ABC Nightline, 60 Minutes, Oprah Winfrey, Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, the New York Times, the Daily Beast, the Hollywood Reporter, Daily Variety, the Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio.