Janet Riley
Owner and President
Janet Riley Strategies

Janet Riley is an experienced communications strategist, professional facilitator and media spokesperson and trainer. Today, she operates a consulting practice in Washington, DC, leveraging five years leading communications at Maple Leaf Foods in Toronto and 28 years leading public affairs for the North American Meat Institute in Washington.

Janet has served as the face of the meat and poultry industry in response to some of the industry’s most challenging crises, including the 1993 E. coli outbreak in the Pacific Northwest, the first U.S. case of BSE in 2003, several high-profile Listeria outbreaks and the 2012 controversy around lean finely textured beef. She is also well known as the “Queen of Wien,” a nickname she earned while serving as President of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. On behalf of the industry, she appeared on news shows ranging from “CNN” and “Nightline” to “The Daily Show” and “The Martha Stewart Show,” and earned the Quote of the Year from ESPN in 2011.

At Maple Leaf Foods, she led the company’s internal and external responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and helped transform internal communications to the company’s employees, leveraging new technology and effective storytelling to engage team members.

Janet is the author of several papers for Food Safety Magazine, as well as a book chapter on historic effort to educate consumers about food safety. She earned her master’s degree in organizational development and leadership at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and her bachelor’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.