29 November 2006
Out of a short-list of top ten including Sainsbury’s Justin King and Tesco’s Sir Terry Leahy, Stuart Rose of Marks & Spencer was announced as the Business Communicator of the Year 2006.
The PRCA Romeike Business Communicator of the Year Award is presented to a FTSE100 CEO who has employed best practice public relations to the overall benefit of their organisation over that year. Previous winners have included EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou and Rose Marie Bravo of Burberry.
Following quantitative and qualitative research undertaken by Romeike to produce the top ten, a judging panel including industry experts Adrian Wheeler, Sarah Clark, commercial director at Romeike; Richard Houghton, PRCA chair and chief executive of Carrot Communications; Sue Jackson, director of corporate communications at Discovery Networks Europe and Simon Lees, associate-publisher of Pr Week.decided on Stuart Rose.
He stood out for the breadth of topics that he communicated on, from financial results through responsible retailing with the 'Behind the Label' campaign to industry topics such as British Fashion week. He was also consistent and clear in his communications, scoring well each month January to September and using simple language with real impact.
Stuart Rose said: "I am delighted to receive the Business Communicator of the Year Award. For me, more than anything, the challenge I faced when I joined M&S was making people believe in themselves once again and getting everyone lined up together as a team, all pointing in the same direction. One of the ways I've approached this is by articulating in one, two, three simple sentences what M&S is about - great product and great service in a great environment. Added to this is the need to stick to our five core principles - Quality; Value; Service; Innovation; Trust.
"In recent years, M&S has had a new strategy every ten minutes. That’s a very easy way to confuse your own people and make them lose confidence. Instead, we've stuck to a simple plan and focused on these eight key words. The plan hasn't changed and I've communicated it again and again so that it's clear to everyone what we need to do”.
The aim of the annual award is to recognise the importance of communications in building a corporate reputation. CEOs remain the designated guardians of their company’s reputation and the company’s choice of CEO is essential to its reputation-building process.
The short-listed CEOs were:
Richard Baker, Alliance Boots plc
Chris Bell, Ladbrokes plc
Philip Bowman, Scottish Power plc
Dr. Jean-Pierre Garnier, GlaxoSmithKline plc
Justin King, J Sainsbury plc
Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco plc
Stuart Rose, Marks & Spencer Group plc
Mark Tucker, Prudential plc
Mike Turner, BAE Systems plc
Ben Verwaayen, BT Group plc
…Ends…
For further information, please contact:
Helen Snoerwang, Romeike Corporate Communications
Tel: 020 72517226 or 07967 672853
Email: helen.snoerwang@romeike.com
Website: www.romeike.com
PRCA: Amy Fairbairn, Communications Manager
Tel: 020 7233 6026 or 07725405924
Email: amyf@prca.org.uk
Note to Editors:
As an integrator of PR and core communications services, Romeike's solutions are focused around media communications management. We provide you with the knowledge, expertise and tools to demonstrate performance, improve the effectiveness of communications and make better-informed business decisions - all backed up with a full suite of market leading products and services in media evaluation, integrated communications solutions, media monitoring and media contacts
Founded in 1852, Romeike has led the media communications market ever since. As part of Swedish based Observer Group AB - the world leader in communications management - we support organisations throughout the communications process. www.romeike.com/
The PRCA (Public Relations Consultants Association) is the representative body for public relations consultancies in the UK. It has over 130 members and represents consultancies who account for more than 70 per cent of the consultancy fee income generated in the UK. As a member organisation is provides support to consultancies to enable them to become better businesses and helps to demonstrate the value of public relations consultancy to clients.
For more information, please visit www.prca.org.uk.
View more archived press releases