Cheryl Heller

Cheryl Heller is an American designer and brand strategist who is a specialist in design and art creation in the world of advertising.

Heller earned a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at Ohio Wesleyan University, and later studied at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

In the 1980s, Heller ran a design agency in Boston called HellerBreene, and she was considered "one of the brightest lights in Boston advertising circles" according to the New York Times in 1993; she was creative director for accounts such as Reebok. In 1989, she left her own agency to work as a creative director at Wells, Rich & Greene advertising. In 1993, she left New York advertising agency Wells, Rich & Greene to work at Frankfurt Gips Balkind, an agency with $90 million in billings with clients such as CBS, Duracell, HBO, Houghton Mifflin, and others. From 1994 until 2000, Heller was the Executive Creative Director and Managing Partner at Siegel and Gale. She worked on national broadcast and print campaigns, identity programs, web-based programs, employee communications and training, direct mail, film, events and cause-related marketing. She began her own firm of Heller Communication Design in 2000. She was credited as being the brainchild of D-Rev, a nonprofit company that designs products for extreme affordability and global access. In addition, she teaches, and was the founding chair of the Design for Social Innovation Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She received an AIGA medal in 2014. She spoke about the creative process in 2007:

I believe that the act of creation, and real innovation, are beyond labels, and can take place anywhere people take the time to understand the context of a challenge, and are willing to think about things in a new way.

— Cheryl Heller, in Smithsonian Magazine, 2007

Adweek magazine writer David Gianatasio described her as a "legacy" and compared her with prominent advertising people such as David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach.

Heller served as strategy consultant for large non-profit organizations including the World Wide Fund for Nature, Audubon New York, IDE (an international organization dedicated to poverty elimination), The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, SafeHorizon, and the Joyful Heart Foundation. She advises Design for the Other 90%, an NGO led by Paul Polak, and helped create a related exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. She is an advisor to the National Academies of Science, and a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship. In 2008, she launched "Good Brand Camp", a one-day workshop for nonprofit organizations and social entrepreneurs to help them accomplish their missions by developing powerful brand strategies and communication systems. Heller is currently on the board of Pop!Tech, an annual conference that explores how technology accelerates social and environmental change, and The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education.