Meredith Vieira and Jon Harris

F14_NUP_164942_0604_F-copy_r1_sized_inline.jpg

Jon Harris, a former corporate public relations executive, is the on-air announcer and sidekick on The Meredith Vieira Show, a daytime talk show that debuted in syndication in September.

Photography: 
courtesy of NBC Universal The Meredith Vieira Show

From Pepsico to Bally’s Total Fitness to the Hillshire Brands Company, Jon Harris has spent his career working in corporate public relations. But now Harris LC’90 is about to jump into an entirely new arena. He is the on-air announcer and sidekick on The Meredith Vieira Show, a new daytime talk show that debuted in syndication on September 8.

Harris says it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. “It is the opportunity of a lifetime. To help and inspire people and to work with someone as wonderful as Meredith is a dream come true,” Harris says. “When she told me what she wanted to do—to use the show to help people—that made me want to be a part of it.”

The move for Harris has seemingly nothing to do with his career in corporate public relations, but it has everything to do with the kind of guy Harris is. During all those years when Harris was meeting and greeting folks on behalf of various companies, he was also making lots of good friends, including Vieira.

“I chose Jon because I adore him,” Vieira says. “It’s scary to launch a new show. So, I wanted a true friend by my side, someone warm with a great sense of humor. That’s Jon. I know our audience will fall in love with him.”

Harris and Vieira have been friends since meeting 20 years ago at a charity dinner when Vieira, then a cohost for The View, was the celebrity waitress serving Harris’s table. Vieira has also done stints as a cohost of The Today Show and host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

“I knew I had met a friend for life that night,” Harris says. “By the end of the night, we were just talking about our lives, our spouses, how we met, our kids. It was so amazing. Twenty years later, that relationship has only gotten stronger.” On the show, Harris says he does a little bit of everything, from chatting with Vieira and members of the audience to singing occasionally with the house band. And he freely admits he takes unofficial looks at the press releases publicizing the show, too. “Once a communications professional, always a communications professional.”

Share your news with us at Ralumni.com/mynews.