Zanku Armenian

Southern California Edison
Director, Public Affairs

Zanku Armenian is Director of Public Affairs within the Government Affairs organization for Southern California Edison (SCE), an Edison International company, with offices in corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, Sacramento (California’s state capital) and Washington, DC. He manages external outreach and public engagement efforts on major company and policy issues, working with 200 local and regional governments and community stakeholders throughout SCE’s 50,000-square mile service territory. He also is a senior member of the company’s emergency preparedness and crisis response teams and previously served in SCE’s Corporate Communications department.

Mr. Armenian has three decades of experience leading public affairs campaigns and communications strategies for major corporations, governments and high-profile issues working out of Washington, DC, Silicon Valley and southern California. Prior to SCE, he worked at the Motion Picture Association of America leading communications programs. Before that, he was Senior Vice President and Western Region General Manager with Brodeur Worldwide, a global technology public relations firm, having established Brodeur’s Washington, D.C. office earlier.

In Washington, he has worked with many different industry sectors as a founding member of the public affairs firm Powell Tate, established by President Jimmy Carter’s press secretary Jody Powell and First Lady Nancy Reagan’s press secretary Sheila Tate. He also has held positions with global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, ABC News, in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, including the office of former Senator and Vice President Joseph Biden. Mr. Armenian also has been very active in national, state and local politics and election campaigns, in addition to presidential election campaigns.

Active with many community-based organizations, Mr. Armenian currently serves as:

  • Member and former chair of the City of Glendale’s Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee (since 2013), which is responsible for allocating several million dollars in Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds to local non-profits supporting low income, senior and youth programs.
  • Vice-Chair of the Glendale Community College Independent Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee, with oversight over $423 million in bond measure funds.
  • Board member, University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy, Local Leaders Program
  •  Executive Board Member, BizFed (Los Angeles County Business Federation) and Co-Chair of BizFed’s Energy & Environment Committee — BizFed is one of Los Angeles County’s largest business advocacy organizations representing tens of thousands of business across the county.
  • Member, Board of Directors (alternate for SCE President), Southern California Leadership Council. SCLC unites prominent business and community leaders from the seven-county southern California region around major policy and economic development issues and includes former California Governors Pete Wilson, Gray Davis and formerly George Deukmejian and two-dozen Presidents and CEO’s of top SoCal companies.
  • He previously served as President of the City of Glendale’s Water and Power Commission 2009-2013.

Mr. Armenian is a graduate of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia with a B.A. in Communication and a secondary concentration in government and politics. He also has advanced certificates from Harvard Business School Executive Education’s Authentic Leadership Development Program and from the Federal Emergency Management Administration’s (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute with certificates in the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the crisis management system sponsored and organized by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).