Marybel Batjer

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Marybel Batjer is vice president of public policy and communications for Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc., the world’s largest gaming-entertainment company. In this role, she oversees all internal and external communications functions for the publicly traded Fortune 500 corporation and counsels its senior executive team on issues pertaining to reputation-management, public policy and government relations.

Before joining Harrah’s in January 2005, Batjer held senior leadership posts in the executive branches of two state governments, as well as key advisory roles in two U.S. presidential administrations and at the Pentagon.

From 2002 to 2005, she was Cabinet Secretary to the Governor of the State of California, where she served as chief policy advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed the activities of the governor’s 13 cabinet secretaries. Earlier, Batjer was Chief of Staff to Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada. She has also served as Undersecretary of the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency and as Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

In the George H.W. Bush administration, Batjer was Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, a position she attained after a successful tenure in the Reagan White House, where she served as the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, as Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, and as Assistant to Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger and Deputy Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.

In addition, Batjer was Director of Political Planning for the National Women’s Political Caucus. She is currently a member of the State of Nevada’s Colorado River Commission, the National Judicial College’s Board of Visitors and Nevada Security Bank’s Board of Directors.

Batjer received her bachelor’s degree from Mills College in California and studied international public policy at the graduate level at Johns Hopkins University. She also studied national and international security at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She currently resides in Las Vegas.