Shrita sees what credibility requires—and builds it.

Shrita Hernandez has spent more than 25 years building the positioning, narrative, and brand strategy that make an institution’s value legible to funders, policymakers, journalists, employees, and the public. She has advised chief executives, boards, and senior leadership teams during campaigns and launches, and through the moments that decide whether an institution is trusted: crises, contested decisions, restructurings, and the slower erosion that precedes them.

She builds the infrastructure that makes credibility hold: the systems, governance, and teams that run them. Her distinction lies in the combination of enterprise communications and brand strategy at national scale; the design of risk and governance systems that strengthen decision-making under pressure; and doctoral research on brand trust that brings evidence to questions executives are often forced to answer on instinct.

At the Urban Institute, she is a nonresident fellow in Executive Research and previously served as chief communications officer and vice president for strategic communications and outreach. She initiated and led the institution’s brand and narrative strategy, defining what the work had to accomplish and directing its development into a modernized institutional narrative, visual identity, and website, alongside an organization-wide alignment of mission language and public-facing content. She also led the design of enterprise risk and response systems, trained more than 60 senior leaders, and drove the redesign of the communications function through significant organizational change.

Before Urban, she spent nearly six years as chief public affairs and communications officer at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, guiding the museum’s public voice as it became Washington’s most-visited attraction and welcomed more than 7 million visitors in its first three years, turning a pandemic closure into an award-winning virtual museum strategy, and leading communications for more than 200 visits by heads of state, presidents, first ladies, and international delegations.

Earlier, as vice president of communications and marketing at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, she built the organization’s first integrated communications and marketing department, advised the president and CEO on public voice, message strategy, and reputational risk, and strengthened its positioning and engagement across government, corporate, philanthropic, and public audiences. She also led communications and marketing for the foundation’s programs and events, and served as conference lead for the 2016 Annual Legislative Conference, keynoted by President Barack Obama. Before the foundation, she served on Capitol Hill as deputy communications director for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Representative Edolphus Towns, and as communications director in his congressional office. In the New York State Assembly, she was chief of staff. Her career began in Miami, where she was executive director of a community-based nonprofit focused on community development and environmental justice.

Through On Repute, her independent publication and platform, she turns that experience toward the questions beneath reputation: how institutions build it, what threatens it, and what leaders do when it is on the line. Her doctoral research in marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business examines brand adaptation and brand trust amid AI-driven disruption. She holds master’s degrees in public administration, public communication, and nonprofit management.

Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, PR Daily, and other publications. A Ragan Top Women in Communications honoree and a PRSA Silver Anvil recipient, she has also led teams and work recognized with Webby, Shorty, Adweek, and other awards. She is based in Washington, DC.