Keith Girard has almost 30 years of experience as a reporter, editor-in-chief, and senior executive. He spent three years writing a syndicated column on small business and covered small business for CBS MarketWatch.

Keith's career began in Washington, D.C., where he was a reporter for The Washington Post and worked as a contributing editor for Regardie's, a regional business magazine and Washingtonian magazine.

In 1992, he became editor-in-chief of The Daily Record, a six-day business and legal newspaper published statewide in Maryland and editor of its sister publication, Warfield's Business Record, a weekly newspaper. In its third year of publication, Warfield's was named the best regional business newspaper in the United States by the Association of Area Business Publications (AABP), a national trade group that represents 68 newspapers. In 1996, Warfield's was merged into The Daily Record to become part of its expanded weekend edition. The following year, the AABP named The Daily Record the best business publication in the United States.

In all, the paper won more than 60 editorial awards under his tenure from the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Associated Press, and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) for reporting, editorial writing, graphics and layout, and design.

Through his work at The Daily Record, Girard gained a reputation for turning around publications and was recruited by Crain to take over InvestmentNews at a critical time 18 months after the newspaper's launch.

Because of his success at InvestmentNews, he attracted the attention of VNU Business Media and was offered the role of editor-in-chief of Billboard magazine. As editor-in-chief of Billboard magazine, Keith oversaw a global staff with five bureaus in the United States and one in the United Kingdom. In just one year, he engineered a complete overhaul of the newspaper and led the paper through a strategic redirection that included two staff reorganizations, expanded coverage, the opening of a San Francisco bureau and the launched a new Web site and Billboard's first e-newsletters.

In his own reporting career, Keith has won nearly two dozen journalism awards for feature writing, general reporting, investigative reporting, editorial writing, headlines, and publication layout and design. He has written one book, on the role of the Marines in Operation Desert Shield/Storm. In 1982, he was named one of the 100 future leaders of Washington, D.C., by Washingtonian magazine.