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10 March, 2010
Crisis of Character: Building Corporate Reputation in the Age of Skepticism - Book launch
New information: The event will take place from 3pm to 5pm
Financial impropriety. Defective products. Oil spills. In today's world, with the Internet and twenty-four-hour cable TV, corporate reputations that take centuries to build can be destroyed in one news cycle. With disgraced boldface names making headlines everywhere, corporations must demonstrate social and moral responsibility as a matter of their own survival. Reputation matters, now more than ever. Crisis of Character presents real-life case studies from the front lines of corporate struggles to illustrate how company strategy must shift to deal with unprecedented levels of scrutiny (and the new environmental and human rights standards that come with it) including: BP's setting of new social responsibility standards while ignoring warnings about worker safety; Bausch & Lomb's foot-dragging recall of a contaminated contact lens solution; Chiquita Brands' emergence from a corrupt history to leadership in corporate responsibility; Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy's reversal of the perception that the company had entered a death spiral. These corporate parables for a modern age emphasize the need for candor and transparency, and they offer concrete ways executives can prepare their enterprises today for the crises that could strike tomorrow. Rich with material that can be put to immediate use by business readers and leaders of all kinds, CRISIS OF CHARACTER reveals that it is possible for a company to emerge stronger than ever from virtually any threat to its reputation.
The event is part of the UNU Midday Forum Programme, which offers an intimate and informal platform of discussion to the UN Permanent Missions, the UN Secretariat, UN agencies, academia, NGOs and the private sector, to discuss and exchange ideas and experiences on important topics related to the UN.
Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Time: 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. EST (New York Time)
Venue: Conference Room E, Temporary North Lawn Building, UN Headquarters
Listen to the audio recording of the event
Coming Soon
Speaker Profiles:
Peter Firestein, President of Global Strategic, Inc.
Moderator Profile:
Jean-Marc Coicaud, Director, UNU-ONY
Event Files and Event report in Word and PDF format:
Coming Soon
Speakers
Peter Firestein counsels CEOs and senior managers of global corporations on financial communications strategy and reputation risk management. He is a former managing director of Thomson Financial and has served as global financial communications advisor to the government of Brazil in the privatization of its national telecommunications network. He writes and publishes The Corporate Reputation Monthly Newsletter. Peter lives in New York with his wife and their three daughters. He is advising clients worldwide on how investors and other stakeholders view them and how they might engage with varied constituencies for the best business results. He believes that communication is only a part of the answer, and much of what corporations must do to integrate themselves with their constituents requires careful attention to internal culture and structure. Reputation, he believes, must be built from the inside out. Reputation management expert Peter Firestein has spent two decades working in the boardrooms of some of the largest companies in the world. In Crisis of Character, Building Corporate Reputation in the Age of Skepticism, he grants readers the opportunity to listen in on the internal corporate conversations in which crucial decisions are made. Intensely aware of the challenges modern companies face, Firestein offers tangible ways to resolve them via his groundbreaking Seven Strategies of Reputation Leadership.
Peter's book, Crisis of Character, Building Corporate Reputation in the Age of Skepticism (Union Square Press, 2009) was released in November 2009, from the Union Square Press, an imprint of Sterling Publishing.
Dr. Jean-Marc Coicaud is the Director of the United Nations University (UNU) Office at the United Nations Headquarters (New York). He was Senior Academic Officer and Director of Studies at the UNU headquarters (Tokyo) from 1996 to 2003. From 1992 to 1996, he served in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General as a speechwriter for Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. A former fellow at Harvard University (Center for International Affairs, Department of Philosophy and Harvard Law School, from 1986 to 1992), Coicaud has held appointments such as Cultural Attaché with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Legislative Aide with the European Parliament (Financial Committee). He has also been a Visiting Professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure-Ulm in Paris and has taught at the New School for Social Research (New York). In addition, he has been a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (Washington, D.C.), a Global Research Fellow at New York University School of Law and a Visiting Scholar at the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University (Beijing). Coicaud holds a Ph.D. in Political Science-Law from the Sorbonne and a Doctorat d'Etat in philosophy from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Paris. He also holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in literature and linguistics.
Jean-Marc Coicaud has published 14 books in the fields of comparative politics, political and legal theory, international relations and international law. They are available in English, French, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic, and include the following single-authored books: L'introuvable démocratie autoritaire (L'Harmattan, 1996), Légitimité et Politique (Presses Universitaires de France, 1997), Politics and Legitimacy: A Contribution to the Study of Political Right and Political Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Beyond the National Interest (United States Institute of Peace Press, 2007), Kokuren no Genkai/Kokuren no Mirai (Future of the UN/Limits of the UN - Fujiwara Shoten, 2007), Mai Xiang Guo Ji Fa Zhi (Towards the International Rule of Law - Sanlian Shudian, 2008). His latest book, co-edited with Hilary Charlesworth, is Fault Lines of International Legitimacy (Cambridge University Press, 2009). Jean-Marc Coicaud is now finishing two new single-authored books, Kissing War Goodbye, and Knowledge and International Institutions.
Jean-Marc Coicaud is a member of the Advisory Board of the Carnegie Council's Global Policy Innovations (New York). He also serves as an adviser for the Fondation pour l'Innovation Politique (Paris).
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Page last modified Last modified: March 16 2010 at 10:19:41 AM.
