WHITE PLAINS, NY—Heineken USA has promoted Tara Rush to senior vice president of corporate relations, reporting to president and CEO Dolf van den Brink. Rush has been serving as the interim leader of the function. She joined Heineken in 2013 as senior director of corporate communications from Emanate, where she opened and led the Los Angeles office. Prior to Emanate, Tara led public relations at Mars and held roles in the consumer marketing practices at Ketchum, Edelman and Weber Shandwick.

WASHINGTON, DC—Maura Sullivan (pictured), currently assistant secretary of public and intergovernmental affairs at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, has been named assistant to the Secretary of Defense for public affairs. Sullivan, a former Marine Corps captain and an Iraq War veteran, will be joining the defense department after having served as the principal public affairs advisor to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald. She was previously an executive at PepsiCo, where she held a number of general management roles.

NASHVILLE—Nissan North America has promoted Brian brockman to director, internal communications, responsible for coordinating employee communications efforts across the US, Canada and Mexico and will oversee the teams that develop and manage electronic tools to communicate with employees. He will report to David Reuter, vice president, corporate communications, Nissan North America. He joined the company in 2007 from MSLGroup.

NEW YORK—CA Technologies has appointed Jeff DeMarrais as senior vice president and chief communications officer, based in New York City reporting to chief marketing officer Lauren Flaherty. DeMarrais most recently served as GE Healthcare's chief communications officer responsible for managing and strengthening the company's reputation. He also led the communications strategy to expand GE's Industrial Internet IoT initiative outside the United States.

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX—AEP Texas has named Andy Heines as director of corporate communications. Heines has held various positions within corporate communications during 27 years with AEP. Earlier in  his career he worked as a journalist.