Bios

Mike Daniels
Chairman, AMEC, and Director, Report International, London
Mike is a director of Report International Ltd, responsible for global business development and strategic partnerships. He has more than 12 years experience in creating international media analysis programs for major corporate and institutional clients in Europe and the U.S. His business experience includes creating a successful integrated marketing communications agency, combining PR and direct marketing, and founding a software development company.

Mike is a graduate of London University, with a degree in philosophy and theoretical linguistics. He is a board member of AMEC and a member of the IPR Commission on Measurement.

Pauline Draper-Watts
Independent Consultant and Chairperson, IPR Commission on PR Measurement and Evaluation, Chicago
Pauline is an independent consultant who is passionate about good research and solid media analysis that demonstrate the effectiveness of communication. Her expertise extends into examining the contribution of social media, publicity and PR to the overall health of a brand, linking media analysis to other research, and integrating it with additional metrics.

She was a founder of Precis, one of the longest-established media analysis companies. She has extensive experience in working with major corporations, both nationally and internationally, spanning numerous industry sectors, including automotive, finance, utilities, pharmaceuticals, technology, government, and consumer products.

Pauline is chair of the IPR's Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation, which exists to establish standards and methods for public relations research and measurement, and to issue authoritative best-practices white papers.

She has been a presenter at various conferences, including events for PRSA, IABC, the American Strategic Management Institute, and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, as well as a speaker for client conferences and leading workshops. She has been a judge for various awards, including the PRWeek Awards and PRSA Silver Anvils and the IPR Jack Felton Golden Ruler Award, and she is the recipient of three AMEC gold awards for media analysis. Pauline has co-authored various papers including "Trends in Informal WOM — Information and Usage" for WOMMA's Measuring Word of Mouth, Volume 4; "Using Public Relations Research to Drive Business Results" for IPR; and "Documenting the Business Outcomes of Public Relations" for PRSA.

Richard Houghton
President, ICCO, and President, Carrot Communications, London
Current president of ICCO and a former chairman of the PRCA U.K., Richard has a 23-year track record in public relations and communications consulting. He has held senior management positions in leading international consultancies, including Weber Shandwick, Fleishman-Hillard and Ketchum, and managed campaigns for clients such as BT, Dell, Nokia, Overture and Siemens Mobile.

Richard is the founder of Carrot Communications, a content, communications and PR agency that focuses on creating conversations between a business and its audience. Carrot works primarily with fast-growth companies technology companies.

Barry Leggetter
FCIPR, FRRCA, and Executive Director, AMEC, London
Barry is executive director of AMEC, where he has been responsible for driving the international expansion of the organization and its rapid year-to-year growth (23 percent in 2008, 50 percent in 2009).

In his 25 years of experience in public relations, he headed the U.K. office of three major public relations networks, Porter Novelli, Fleishman-Hillard and GolinHarris, climaxing his PR career in the role of international chairman of Bite Communications (Next Fifteen Group), the largest U.K. brand in the Next Fifteen Communications Group, responsible for shaping global strategy. He took up the position with AMEC in 2007.

Barry is a fellow of the U.K. Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and a founding fellow of PRCA.

Andre Manning
Vice President and Global Head of Corporate Communications, and Acting Head, Global Marketing and Communications, Royal Philips Electronics, Amsterdam
Andre is an experienced and results-oriented communications leader who has held various international communications leadership positions within Philips. During the late 90's, he lived and worked in Prague, Czech Republic, to build up a communications network in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2001, Andre moved back to Amsterdam to join the corporate media relations team and worked on financial and strategic communications. Three years later, his role expanded to lead a team overseeing all communications for the Philips Netherlands organization while he also served as the deputy head of Philips' global media relations team.

In 2005, Andre and his family were asked to move to the United States to work in New York at the U.S. headquarters of Philips. Within two years, he successfully improved Philips' reputation in the U.S., and two years later became the global communications head of the company's $10 billion global healthcare business, headquartered in Andover, Mass. Under his leadership, his team managed to improve the quality and the quantity of the healthcare communications outcome for three consecutive years.

In the summer of 2009, Andre moved back to the company's headquarters in the Netherlands to lead the network of 50 communications professionals around the globe. He is the communications advisor of the Philips board of management, and has improved the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of the function, and introduced a new PR measurement system within the first months after his arrival.

Gary McCormick
Chairman and CEO, PRSA, and Director, Partnership Development, HGTV, Scripps Network, Knoxville, Tenn.
Over his career, Gary has pioneered significant changes in the way the U.S. government approaches public relations, public affairs and public participation. Integrating the principles of risk communication, research and strategic planning, Gary has helped communities nationwide in his work for federal clients during a 17-year career handling some of the U.S.'s highly technical and emotional issues, including long-term storage of radioactive waste, environmental cleanup of defense sites and disposal of chemical weapons.

He currently works in the corporate public relations arena as director of partnership development for HGTV. In this role, Gary is responsible for identifying opportunities for off-channel exposure for the leading home and lifestyle cable network and its on-air talent, investigating, defining and implementing partnerships that will increase ratings and awareness with viewers. Before moving to HGTV, Gary served as director of public relations for DIY Network and Fine Living TV Network, where he directed the networks. media relations and special events, including DIY's national partnership with Habitat for Humanity.

Gary now co-chairs the Champions of PRSSA and serves on the board of directors for Plank Center for Public Relations Leadership at the University of Alabama and the University of Florida's Department of Public Relations Advisory Council. Serving as an immediate past president of the PRSA Foundation, he helped to further its mission to advance public relations education and research.

Mazen Nahawi
President, News Group International, Dubai
Mazen is president of News Group, a Dubai-based organization focused on serving the communications and PR industry. The company includes several strategic businesses, including Media Watch, the first provider of monitoring solutions in the Middle East and North Africa, and Salience Research, an agency dedicated to public relations measurement.

He started his career 15 years ago as a journalist at Dar Al Khaeej, the UAE's main privately owned publishing company. He then worked as a senior manager at a regional public relations firm before founding Media Watch in 2002.

His deep belief in using actionable and measurable information as a catalyst for modernization and progress in emerging markets is the driving principle behind his work. In 2007, Mazen launched the Middle East PR Measurement Summit. Now entering its fourth year, the event is a major gathering of global PR and measurement professionals, and plays an important role in encouraging regional PR toward adoption of measurement best practices and methodology.

Mazen is also responsible for forming an AMEC MIddle East Chapter in 2011.

John Paluszek
Chairman, Global Alliance; Senior counsel, Ketchum, New York
John is senior counsel at Ketchum, specializing in reputation management and corporate responsibility. He is also chairman of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, liaison to the United Nations for the Public Relations Society of America, and a member of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications as well as the Commission on Public Relations Education.

The PRSA 1989 national president, John has held many offices in that society and received many professional awards. In 1988, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, he represented PRSA in the first U.S.-Soviet Bilateral Information Talks in Moscow and in the first East-West Public Relations Summit in Vienna. In December 2002, he chaired the plenary session on communications at the Berlin United Nations Global Compact Forum and, in April 2004, addressed the Paris Global Compact meeting, "Sustainable Consumption." He has lectured on corporate responsibility and reputation management at 10 U.S. colleges and at business conferences on four continents.

A former journalist, John has written many commentaries for business and academic journals, such as The Journal of the Public Affairs Council, Journalism Studies, and The United Nations Global Compact Learning Forum. He is the author of An American Journey, his immigrant family's multigenerational memoir, and seminal books on corporate social responsibility, Organizing for Corporate Social Responsibility (Amacom, 1973) and Will The Corporation Survive? (Prentice-Hall, 1977). A graduate of Manhattan College and a former member of the college's board of trustees, John received a Manhattan College honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, in 2005.

David Rockland, Ph.D.
Chairman, AMEC U.S. Agency Research Leaders Group; Partner, Ketchum; CEO, Ketchum Pleon Change; and Managing Director, Ketchum Research, New York
David joined Ketchum in 2000. He has responsibility for the research business at Ketchum including its global network across the U.S., Costa Rica, Brazil, China, Germany, Spain, the U.A.E. and the U.K. In addition, he is responsible for Ketchum Pleon Change, the firm's change communications consulting enterprise. David manages approximately 150 people across the two business units, and was responsible for forming Ketchum Interactive, now known as Ketchum Digital.

Before joining Ketchum, he was senior vice president and managing director for Roper Starch Worldwide, where he managed the company's environmental and public relations practice areas. David previously owned his own firm, The Rockland Group, specializing in environmental issues management and marketing, which he sold to Roper Starch in 1998. He has served as a corporate communications leader for two global companies.

He is a member of the IPR Commission on PR Measurement and Evaluation, and was its chairman for 2007 and 2008. He is on the board of AMEC and spearheads a new initiative to grow membership among the research units of global PR and advertising groups, as well as U.S. measurement companies. In November 2010, he received AMEC's new Services to Industry Award in recognition for his "outstanding work in establishing the Barcelona Principles measurement framework and for launching AMEC's first international chapter in the U.S." He holds a Ph.D. in natural resource economics from the University of Delaware, is on the faculty at NYU, and has held teaching roles at Rutgers and the University of Maryland.

Brendan Swale
Chairman, AMEC Asia Pacific Chapter, and AMEC board member, and Executive Director, Product and Innovation, Media Monitors, Sydney
Brendan has 15 years of experience in the media monitoring and research industry in New Zealand, the U.K. and Australia. He was research manager for Sponsorship Information Services in both the U.K. and Australia, and then general manager of Media Monitors Australia's Analysis Division. Brendan was later appointed general manager of Media Monitors' operations in New Zealand following the acquisition of Media Search, now part of Media Monitors.

In 2007, he returned to Sydney to take up the position of group research director at Media Monitors, and the following year was appointed to his current position of executive director, product and innovation, responsible for new product development and business process improvement.

Brendan is currently a board member of AMEC. He has a degree in political studies and economics from the University of Auckland and a postgraduate diploma of business in communication management from Massey University.

Antoney G. Wilkinson
Senior Director, Global Communications, FedEx Corporation, Memphis, Tenn.
Toney's rise to a top corporate communications post at FedEx came through several Asia Pacific posts in Hong Kong and Australia, covering corporate communications and operations over the past nine years.

Prior to joining FedEx, Toney held progressively impressive public sector policy, political and communications posts, serving as an advisor to the minister for education; manager, public affairs and programs for the National Air and Space Museum of Australia; senior ministerial advisor to the sinister for Asian relations; and, finally, chief of staff to the minister of finance and minister for gaming.