March 19, 2010

_________________________________________________________
Edelman Supports International Paralympic Games in Vancouver, Whistler
Edelman is on assignment for The International Karyo Edelman general managers Patti Schom-
Paralympic Committee (IPC) as its 2010 Games Moffatt and Paul Welsh were among the
got underway this week in Vancouver and Vancouver Paralympic Torch Relay torchbearers
Whistler, British Columbia. who carried the flame through downtown
Vancouver on March 10. They were among an
elite group of fewer than 600 torchbearers for the
relay.

Karyo Edelman GMs Patti Schom-Moffatt and

Paul Welsh were among the torchbearers

Edelman is working closely with the IPC to handle

communications support ranging from interview
coordination for key IPC executives at the Games
to media relations outreach in several key nations. Patti with the torch in downtown Vancouver

In tandem with the March 12 Winter Paralympic
Opening Ceremony at downtown Vancouver’s
B.C. Place stadium, the team reached out to U.S.
media regarding the Paralympic Hall of Fame
induction of Chris Waddell, the most decorated
U.S. winter Paralympian. Edelman staff members
are also embedded at the in Whistler Paralympic
Media Center, assisting with competition media
relations needs.
__________________________________________________________
Team members include Darren Roberts, Julia
Cameron and Mahafrine Petigara, Vancouver;
Lindsey Early of Chicago (working in Whistler for
the event); Mary Scott, New York; and Nicholas
Wolaver, Atlanta, who conducted media outreach
in February.

1
Chicago Consumer Helps Burger King Raise a Mug for Whopper Bar
Chicago Consumer Marketing recently helped
Burger King announce a milestone -- the opening
of a Whopper Bar in Miami’s South Beach
neighborhood that is the first in the U.S. to serve
beer.

Right in the backyard of Burger King’s Miami

headquarters, the world’s fifth Whopper Bar
presented the ideal opportunity to provide the
media with a progress report on how the Whopper-
centric concept had evolved. It also enabled the
client to highlight the addition of beer and a
delivery service to its domestic offerings.

The challenge came in ensuring that the coverage

clearly communicated the limited extent of the
beer offering – that it is restricted to the adult-
focused Whopper Bars and would not be available
South Beach site is the 1st in the U.S. to serve beer
at traditional Burger King restaurants. In addition,
it was important to Burger King that the focus on
With help from Media Services, nearly all of
beer didn’t upstage the real star: the brand’s
Miami’s local outlets covered the Whopper Bar. It
signature sandwich, the Whopper.
even was the subject of jokes during monologues
on “The Jay Leno Show” and “Late Night with
A strategic plan, created and executed by the
David Letterman.” News broadcasts included
Edelman team, ensured that the first news out of
FOX News, CNN and PBS and notable blogs and
the gate would be a success. That came in an
sites such as PerezHilton.com, WalletPop.com,
exclusive with USA Today, which touched on the
Slashfood.com and Gothamist.com. Print coverage
brand’s priority messages, clearly described the
was secured in the Chicago Tribune and New York
Bar’s new offerings, and ultimately set the stage
Daily News.
for widespread attention from media and
consumers.
Deemed a success by Burger King, the program
established excitement for the newest Whopper
USA Today’s article was quickly followed by
Bar and helped build anticipation for opening day.
distribution of a press release, Associated Press
The assignment was led by the account team of
coverage and more than 550 local TV mentions –
Alix Salyers, Erica Sarakaitis, Lauren Kuzniar and
all carefully planned to be aired before Miami’s
Lauren Ross with Katie Scrivano and Aaron
media landscape shifted its focus to the Super
Gannon, Media Services, all Chicago.
Bowl.

__________________________________________________________
Seattle Leverages Olympic Games to Showcase Washington as a Destination
This year’s Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, To transform interest in the region into media
BC helped shine the spotlight on the entire Pacific coverage that promotes its home state, Edelman
Northwest as a vacation destination. Seattle’s team on the Washington Tourism account
created a comprehensive communications plan that

2
included developing an Olympics-focused travel
resource at
www.experiencewa.com/2010wintergames.
The Seattle account group enlisted travel writers
who wanted to cover the events. They also worked
with the Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors
Bureau and the new Northern Quest Resort &
Casino to develop two-day itineraries that
highlighted Spokane as a value-focused travel
destination for Seattle-area residents.

Following the trip, the team received resoundingly

U.S. skating competition was held in Spokane
positive feedback from the writers and the Tourism
Office. Online coverage of the U.S. Figure
Skating Championships was secured immediately
following the trips on SeattlePI.com,
Examiner.com and PlanetEyeTraveler.com. The
writers promised to do future stories on Spokane
over the coming year.

The plan included the hosting of two individual The program is handled by Ian Jeffries, Amanda
media familiarization trips to Spokane during the Watkins, Jacquelyn Potwin and Michael Eggerling,
U.S. Figure Skating Championships (of which all Seattle.
Washington State Tourism was a sponsor).
__________________________________________________________
2010 Already Off to a Big Start for Edelman Orlando
The new year is proving to be busy and productive professionals under the umbrella of Edelman
for the Orlando office. Southeast.

Earlier this week, Senior Vice President Laura

Guitar appeared on “Flashpoint,” an hour-long
public affairs program on the local CBS-affiliate.
Laura spoke about the Trust Barometer’s findings
and their relevance to Central Florida.

Last month, Orlando’s staff welcomed Edelman

U.S. President and CEO Matt Harrington and
Edelman Southeast Region President Claudia
Patton to a Trust Barometer event with more than
100 business and community leaders.

While in Florida, Matt was interviewed by the Matt Harrington addressed the Trust event
Orlando Sentinel about Tiger Woods’ public crowd that included many community leaders
apology - comments that were picked up on Web
sites across the country. The Orlando office focuses on corporate, digital
and health initiatives and is poised for continued
In mid-January, the office celebrated its second growth as the economy recovers.
anniversary and its growth from two to six
__________________________________________________________

3
Chris Deri among World Economic Forum “Young Global Leaders” for 2010
Chris Deri, New York-based head of Edelman The honor, bestowed each year by the WEF,
Corporate Social Responsibility, has been selected recognizes up to 200 outstanding young leaders
by the World Economic Forum to be among its from around the world for their professional
Young Global Leaders (YGLs) for 2010. accomplishments, commitment to society and
potential to contribute to shaping the future of the
world.

For 2010, the Forum has selected 197 Young

Global Leaders from 72 countries. Chris is among
the 38 people picked from North America.

“The World Economic Forum is a true multi-

stakeholder community of global decision-makers
in which Young Global Leaders represent the
voice of the future and hopes of the next
generation,” said Klaus Schwab, founder and
executive chairman of the WEF.

The 2010 honorees will become part of the broader

Forum of Young Global Leaders community that
comprises 660 outstanding individuals. The YGLs
Chris Deri convene at an annual summit – this year it will be
in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in May.
__________________________________________________________
UK’s Ben Cotton Wins European Award for His Blog
Account Executive Ben Cotton of the Edelman UK
Digital group has won a European award for his
blog Social Web Thing.

Ben, who recently joined the UK Digital team

from the Centre for Public Relations Studies at
Leeds Metropolitan University, received the Best
Practitioner/Researcher award at the Euprera
Spring Symposium in Ghent, Belgium.

Ben has been blogging on the PR industry since

2007. He launched “Social Web Thing” in 2009 to
focus more on digital and social media and
employability issues.

Ben Cotton

4
Ben said: “I’m delighted to have won the award
and must confess that I’m exceptionally proud,
given the high standard of blogs that mine was up
against. As I said throughout my presentation at
the conference, the success of the blog has little to
do with me and much to do with the many people
__________________________________________________________
who have kindly given their time to answer Q&As
or give opinions – which in turn have stimulated
much debate. It’s their views and insights that have
added real value and a fresh perspective to ‘Social
Web Thing.’”

Edelman Portland Volunteers with Transition Projects

Six Edelman Portland employees recently
volunteered for a night of providing meals at the
Clark Center, a shelter for men transitioning out of
homelessness. It is one of three shelters operated
by Transition Projects, a nonprofit agency.

Edelman staff prepared and served a lasagna

dinner for 90 men. The volunteers had a chance to
talk with residents and also with program directors
about their goal of meeting the basic needs of
people in transition from homelessness to having
housing.

Residents of the Clark Center were grateful for

their delicious meal. The Edelman colleagues said
they thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the
Edelman volunteers (L-R) Meredith Williams, Bre
opportunity to work with one another outside of
Landman, Alyson Angelo, Jessica Johnston and
the office. Erika Simms. Shannon Huggins, the sixth
member, is not shown.
__________________________________________________________

Bob Reincke Dan Edelman John Edelman

Editor Editor-in-Chief Contributing Editor
bob.reincke@edelman.com dan.edelman@edelman.com john.edelman@edelman.com

5
10 Id
deas fo
or the Next
N 10
0
Years
A thinker'ss guide to the most
m importantt trends of the
new decadde

The Tw
wilight of
o the Elites
By CHRISTO
OPHER HAYES Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010

BACK

In the passt decade, nea arly every pillar institution in below 40%4 at the sttart of the deccade. And
American society — whether it's Ge eneral Motors, Congre ess was the le east trusted in nstitution of all,
Congresss, Wall Street, Major Leagu ue Baseball, the with on nly 12% of Am mericans exprressing confid dence
Catholic Church
C or the mainstream media — hass in it. Th
he mistrust off élites extend ds to élites
revealed itself
i to be co
orrupt, incomp petent or both h. themse elves. Every year,
y public-rrelations gurru
And at thee root of thesee failures are the people Richarrd Edelman conducts
c a "trrust baromete er"
who run th hese institutio
ons, the bright and across 22 countries, in which he surveys only
industriouus minds who occupy the commanding
c highly educated,
e hig
gh-earning, media-attentive
m e
heights off our meritocrratic order. In exchange forr people. In the U.S., these people e show extrem mely
their poweer, status andd remuneratio on, they are low levvels of trust in government and businesss
supposed d to make sure e everything operates
o alike. Particularly
P disstrusted are the
t superman n
smoothly. But after a cascade of sca andals and CEOs of o yore. "Chie ef-executive trrust has just been
b
catastroph hes, that impllicit social con
ntract lies in mired in the mid- to low 20s," sayys Edelman. "It "
ruins, replaced by mas ss skepticism,, contempt an nd started d off with Enroon and culmin nates in Citi."
disillusion
nment.
Such fiigures show that
t the crisis of authority
In the wakke of the implosion of nearrly all sourcess of extends beyond narrrow ideologiccal categoriess: Big
American authority, this new decade e will have to Busine ess and unions, Congress and a Wall Stre eet,
be about reforming ourr institutions to t reconstitute ea organizzed religion and science arre all viewed with
more relia able and democratic form of o authority. skepticcism. So why is it that so much
m of the
Scholarly research sho ows a firm corrrelation countryy's leadershipp in so many different
d walkks of
between strong
s instituttions, accounttable élites an
nd life perrformed so terrribly over thiss decade? While
highly functional econo omies; mistrusst and no sing gle-cause theory can expla ain such a wid de
corruption n, meanwhile,, feed each otther in a vicio ous array of
o institutional failures, therre are some
circle. If our
o current cris sis continues, we risk a lon
ng, themess — in particu ular, the conce entration of power
ugly proce ess of de-dev velopment: hig gher levels off and the e erosion of trransparency anda accounta ability
corruption n and tax evas sion and an in
ncreasingly — that extend throu ughout.
fractured public sphere e, in which booth public
consensus and reform become all but b impossible e. Few pe eople know thhis better thann Terry McKie ernan,
56, the
e founder of Bishop
B Accoun ntability. Like
For more than 35 years s, Gallup hass polled nearly all Irish-Amerrican boys of his generatio on,
Americans about levels s of trust in th
heir institutions McKierrnan was raised in the Rom man Catholic
— Congre ess, banks, Big
B Business, public schoolls, Churchh — altar boy,, confirmation n, a lifetime off
etc. In 200
08 nearly eve
ery single insttitution was att Sundayys. His uncle was a priest. When allega ations
an all-time
e low. Banks were trusted by just 32% of o of sexu
ual abuse in thhe priesthood d surfaced in 2002,
the populaace, down fro
om more than 50% in 2004 4. McKierrnan says, "thhe whole thing g honestly hit me
Newspape ers were dowwn to 24%, fro om slightly kind off hard." So he
e quit his job as
a a managem ment
consultant and started Bishop Accountability,
which is in the process of procuring more than 3
million pages of records about the Church's sex-
abuse scandal. According to McKiernan, the main
institutional characteristics that produced the crisis
were the Church's obsessive secrecy and its
hierarchical nature. Those at the top of the
pyramid, the bishops, were exempt from any
corrective accountability from below. This dynamic
isn't unique. "There are various ways in which the
Church is a peculiar institution," McKiernan says.
"But," he adds, "it is also simply an institution in
which the rules of power apply and the effects of
secrecy apply. I'm not surprised that people doing
unexamined things do bad things."
That dynamic has played itself out throughout
society. Look at CEO pay. In 1978, according to
the Economic Policy Institute, the ratio of average
CEO pay to average wage was about 35 to 1. By
2007 it was 275 to 1. Nell Minow, a lawyer and
corporate-governance expert, has for decades
waged a one-woman crusade against excessive
CEO pay. She has watched as CEOs have found
ways to manipulate the levers of governance and
devise ingenious methods of guaranteeing
themselves windfalls regardless of their company's
performance. "It's like going to a racetrack and
betting on all the horses, except you're using
someone else's money," Minow says. "You know
one of them is going to win. As long as you're not
paying for the tickets, you're going to come out
ahead."
Of course, it's not really news that very gifted and
talented people can make poor, even colossally
catastrophic judgments. But the fact is, a complex
society like ours requires many tasks to be
performed by experts and élites, and tackling some
of the most difficult and urgent problems we face
requires repositories of authority that can
successfully marshal public consensus.
Take the problem of climate change. It's beyond
our ability to recognize the imperceptible upward
creep of global temperatures, so we must rely on
the authority of those who are doing the highly
Hayes is the Washington editor of the Nation
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971117,00.html#ixzz0huZ5pkNx
complicated measuring. But at a moment when we
desperately need élites and experts to use their
social capital to warn the populace of the dangers
of catastrophic climate change, skepticism is rising.
A comprehensive Pew poll released in October
found that only 57% of respondents think there's
evidence of warming (down from 71% last year),
and just 36% think it's because of human activity
(down from 47%). This is the danger of living in a
society in which the landscape of authority has
been leveled: it's not there when you actually need
it.
The élites' failures of the past decade should teach
us that institutions of all kinds need input from
below. The Federal Reserve is home to some of
the finest economists and brightest minds in the
country, and yet it still managed to miss an $8
trillion housing bubble and the explosion of the
subprime market. If, say, the Federal Reserve Act
required several seats on the board of governors
to be reserved for consumer advocates — heck,
even community organizers — it would have been
harder to miss these twin phenomena.
If there are heartening countertrends to the past
decade of élite failure, they're the tremendous
outpouring of grass-roots activism across the
political spectrum and the remarkable surge in
institutional innovation, much of it facilitated by the
Internet. In less than a decade, Wikipedia has
completely overturned the internal logic of the
Enlightenment-era encyclopedia by radically
democratizing the process of its creation. Farmers'
markets have blossomed as a means of
challenging and subverting the industrial food-
distribution cartel. Charter schools have grown for
the same reason; local school systems are no
longer viewed as transparent and democratic.
This, one hopes, is just the beginning. All these
new institutions are inspired by a desire to
democratize old, big oligarchic hierarchies and
devolve power downward and outward. That's our
best hope in the decade to come. For at the end of
the day, it's the job of citizens to save élites from
themselves.
Becoming global Games players
B.C. workers are stepping off the podium for now, but there are
job opportunities in future Games for those with Olympic
expertise
Curt Cherewayko
They’re losing their jobs and likely
suffering more acutely from Olympic
postpartum depression than other British
Columbians, but VANOC employees can
take heart: experience in organizing and
operating an Olympic Games can secure
them a ticket on the endless Olympic
employment caravan.
Roughly 300 of VANOC’s 1,500 full-time
employees were laid off on March 1. In the
months and years after the last of the
Vancouver Games is dismantled, future
Olympic host cities London, England
(2012), and Sochi, Russia (2014), will be
looking for additional Olympic expertise as
they near the opening ceremonies of their
Games.
That doesn’t mean that VANOC
employees – some of whom are already in
discussions with the Sochi Games HR
department – are guaranteed jobs in 2012,
but they can find hope in the stories of at
least a handful of businesses in B.C. that
have leveraged their Games experience to
become serial Olympic employees.
Debra Lykkemark’s involvement in the
Olympics dates back to Salt Lake City in
2002. She sent two chefs from her
Culinary Capers Catering Inc. team to
work with American colleagues in the
catering industry who had landed Olympic
contracts in that city. Salt Lake was
essentially a scouting and reconnaissance
exercise for Lykkemark, who is the
president and CEO of Culinary Capers.
She predicted that if Vancouver’s bid for
the 2010 Games were successful, the city
and province would raise its profile in the
Games leading up to 2010 and generate
Olympic opportunities for local companies.
She was right. Culinary Capers sent
seven employees to Torino for two weeks
after winning the request for proposal to
cater for the BC Olympic Secretariat’s BC-
Canada Place. That led to a five month-
long catering contract with the secretariat
for the BC-Canada Pavilion in Beijing in
2008. Culinary Capers landed additional
Olympic contracts in Beijing with
embassies and Adidas And established a
permanent division in that city that
continues operating there today. Culinary
Capers’ groundwork in Salt Lake, Torino,
and Beijing yielded a flood of work during
Vancouver’s Games.
When Russia was looking for a local
caterer for its Sochi House, a colleague
who Lykkemark had met at the Torino
Games and had helped Sochi with its
Olympic bid referred the Russians to her.
Culinary Capers, which has 200 full-time
employees, hired an additional 300
employees for the Vancouver Games to
feed visitors of Sochi House and cater to a
half-dozen other Olympic clients like Royal
Bank of Canada and Shaw
Communications Inc.
Lykkemark emphasized the role that her
connections and experience in previous
Games had in the volume of business
Culinary Capers landed during the
Vancouver-Whistler Games.

“Everybody knows who we are because
they saw us in Beijing; they saw us in
Torino,” said Lykkemark, who has also had
to ramp up media relations in Vancouver
thanks to reports that a food preparation
area in Sochi House operated by another
caterer did not meet food preparation
standards.
On the PR side, Karyo Edelman
Communications Inc.’s large involvement
in the Vancouver Games can also be
traced back to its experience in the BC-
Canada pavilions in Torino and Beijing.
In 2005, Karyo Edelman was Karyo
Communications and was too small and
local to win the bid to organize the BC
Olympic Secretariat’s global
communications strategy in Torino. To win
the bid, Karyo partnered with Edelman, a
global PR heavyweight that has been
involved in some capacity in every Olympic
Games since 1976.
As a profile-raising exercise for the 2010
Games, the BC-Canada Pavilion in Torino
was a huge success.
Paul Welsh, Karyo-Edelman’s general
manager, is especially proud of the street-
hockey games the BC-Canada team
organized daily in the Piazza adjacent to
the pavilion.
The pavilion and the street-hockey games
received 45 million Internet hits through
media coverage.
In April 2007, Edelman bought controlling
interest in Karyo.
“Would Edelman have coming knocking on
our door to buy us without our experience
_____________________________________________________________________________________
together at the Olympics? I don’t think so,”
said Welsh.
During the 2010 Games, Karyo-Edelman
had more than a dozen local, national and
international clients involved in the Games.
“For us, the Olympics has been a catalyst
to take the firm to a completely different
level with clients and relationships that we
only could’ve imagined seven years ago
when the bid was announced,” said Welsh.
He hopes that Karyo-Edelman’s previous
experience in the Games and, more
importantly, its parent company’s long-
standing involvement in the Games
translates into further Olympic work for the
Vancouver arm of Edelman.
“For some of my competitors that aren’t
connected, the Olympic run is over, but for
us it doesn’t have to be,” said Welsh.
Clint Flood, president of Viewpoint
Technologies Ltd., a Victoria firm that
creates software for managing large
sporting events, first become involved in
the Games during the 1988 Calgary
Olympics. He likens the networks of
individuals and businesses that
consistently find jobs at each Olympic
Games as a travelling caravan or circus.
“The event industry worldwide is a tight-
knit community,” said Flood. He noted that
employees of VANOC will also have
opportunities at other large-scale sporting
events such as the Pan American Games
in Toronto in 2015, the next big sporting
event to be hosted by a Canadian city.
“The fact is that now there are a lot more
people in B.C. who are hooked into [these]
events.” •
Hiring Freeze Starts to Thaw as Agency Business Hunts for Talent

WPP, Edelman, BBH, OMD Look to Hire; LinkedIn Lists 1,300 Openings

By Michael Bush

Published: March 15, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- After a nearly yearlong hiring freeze and having shed 14,000 employees,
WPP chief Martin Sorrell had a bit of good news last week: The holding company is staffing up.

It's a welcomed announcement for an industry that lost almost 200,000 jobs between December 2008 and
January 2010. Firms from Edelman to OMD to BBH are adding to their ranks, crediting a stronger
business outlook and a need to add people with new skills.

"Agencies had to respond to what was going on in 2009 by making some massive cuts," said Pat
Mastandrea, founding partner-CEO of the Cheyenne Group. She said when the market started to turn
around in the fourth quarter of 2009 and budgets started to grow back, you had agencies that were too
lean. "Now those agencies are in the process of having to address that by recruitment. And it's even
stronger in the first quarter of 2010 than it was in the last quarter of 2009."

A search on LinkedIn jobs revealed nearly 1,300 agency listings for positions ranging from account
executive and account director to senior account executive and business-development specialist. That's
still a far cry from the number of jobs lost, and it's hard to believe the industry will ever equal the size it
once did. But the recovering economy, new business and an uptick in spending from existing clients
has Edelman hiring "in a big way," said Laura Smith, managing director-U.S. human resources.
And it's not just replacing the jobs it cut last year. "It's mostly growth," she said. "At this time last
year we had 25 positions open and today we have a little over 100."

Alan Cohen, U.S. CEO of Omnicom Group's OMD, said his agency's increased hiring is driven by the
health of the media business in general and the amount of new business the agency has brought in over
the past two years.

Social media recruiting

While many agencies are still working with recruitment firms, some like BBH and Edelman are relying
heavily on social-media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or their own websites.
Edelman's in-house recruiters have been trained to use social media to seek candidates, especially for the
digital positions, said Ms. Smith. "We don't put ads in the paper anymore and it shocks me that companies
still do."

Agencies are also seeking new types of hires. BBH Labs announced last week on its site that it's "looking
for a rare breed of person," for whom "technology is your oxygen -- you need it every second of the day
and always want the freshest air, but you understand that not everyone is like you, so you can translate it
into natural consumable language."
Ann Brown, founder of recruiter Ann Brown Co. , said it's not just digital jobs that are being filled.
"Fortunately there are a number of agencies evolving the way they need to be and are hiring people with
360-degree experience," Ms. Brown said. "They don't want to train anybody in digital if all they have is a
traditional background. They want people coming in to look at things from all sides."
Edelman's Ms. Smith said the agency has been hiring people across the board in practices areas such as
corporate, public affairs, health care and technology.

Ms. Brown said that while chief financial officers are still keeping the reins pulled tightly on certain
aspects of spending, they do appear to be feeling more comfortable about filling some of the slots vacated
through layoffs last year.

Harris Diamond, head of Interpublic Group of Cos.' Constituency Management Group, said, "There is and
will be hiring going on" in areas such as social innovation. "But there are other areas of our businesses
where, frankly, you just lose some people and there won't be replacements for them."

"There are signs of life but I have to be honest, for the last two-and-a-half years we have had little jumps
in hiring for four to six weeks and then it will settle back down," said Paul S. Gumbinner, president of
recruiter Gumbinner Co. "We do have more jobs in the house right now... I'm just not sure it's going to
last."
Posted on March 10, 2010

Corporations Must Consider Haiti's Long-Term Needs

by Jane Madden, Senior Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility &

Sustainability, Edelman

It has been two months since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated the
nation of Haiti, and the outpouring of corporate assistance for relief and
recovery efforts there has been heartening. American companies, in
particular, deserve praise for the size, breadth, and speed of their charitable
response.

Still, the corporate community must recognize that Haiti requires long-term
reconstruction and economic development; a donors' conference in
Montreal in January put the price tag at $3 billion over the next decade.

Today, corporate social responsibility obliges companies to go beyond simply providing

immediate assistance when catastrophe strikes an impoverished nation such as Haiti. Instead,
the business community must strive to ensure that Haiti serves as a laboratory for long-term
post-disaster reconstruction.

To that end, let's adopt a "build back better" approach. This is an opportunity for the business
community, donor governments, foundations, and nongovernmental organizations to assist in
developing better infrastructure, agriculture, educational, healthcare, and telecommunications
systems for the Haitian people.

Such an effort will require real public engagement — including businesses partnering with
governments, multilateral agencies, and NGOs to truly live up to their pledges of corporate
responsibility and to ensure progress in the Western hemisphere's poorest country.
Corporations must step up with their latest technology and innovations, business acumen, and
skilled workers and at the same time contribute to building the capacity of Haiti's workforce.

This doesn't mean companies have to break the bank to make a major contribution to Haiti's
recovery. Indeed, in many cases they can make a bigger impact by concentrating on a few key
areas related to their core business. Assistance for Haiti's major industries — textiles and
tourism — is likely to be especially helpful, as such assistance will help the government of Haiti
restore its two most viable industries and create desperately needed jobs.

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, noted that with the access to the U.S. market
created by congressional legislation passed in 2008, "Haiti can create jobs in its apparel and
agriculture sectors. It can promote the private sector by creating an enabling environment for
investment and building the infrastructure of power grids, ports, and roads."
American corporations and their stakeholders must understand how helping Haiti over the long
term also helps them. By contributing to Haiti's reconstruction in a lasting, meaningful way,
companies will be helping to build a new, more vibrant Caribbean market for their own goods
and services.

It's time for American business to be a change agent in Haiti. Make no mistake, the Haitian
people will embrace the effort. As a well-known Haitian proverb puts it: Men anpil, chay pa lou.
"Many hands make a workload lighter."

Jane P. Madden is senior vice president and director of Edelman's corporate social
responsibility and sustainability practice in Chicago.

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