Hello everyone, thank you Kelly and congratulations on really a fantastic first year as chair and I have to say that introduction of me really was I thought too short.
I don't know I have so many other things you could have talked about but I realized you know it's moving on.
Now thank you very much Kelly. All right I have some thank yous to do like Bill and I want to tell a few stories.
So I better get to it. First, the thank yous to my page friends, Roger Dan, Elliott, Kelly, Lauren, Mary, and everyone on the team, and to all the page members who I've met over the years, who I liberally stole ideas from after these meetings, I can say with all sincerity, you truly made Page the best professional experience of my life.
So thank you to the page team, to our highly deserving Distinguished Service Award recipient, Bill Heyman. Thank you and attaboy, Bill.
As Bill said, I asked Bill early in my term as CCO to help me build the team, and he's such a wonderful person and so good at what he did.
I was so happy when he said yes. And you know, when Bill takes your son to a baseball game, it doesn't end there, right?
He follows up with my son. Sunmark who went with us to see a Yankee game. He always asks, asks me about him.
It's just the wonderful friendship that grew out of really a vendor relationship, and it's been the most treasured of my professional career.
So thank you, Bill, so much. To the Page Honors Committee, led by Merrill and Sandra, thank you for thinking me worthy of induction.
To all my GE friends here this evening, Jeff, oh, Jeff's not here. Jeff Demeray was going to be here.
He's had his knee replaced, so he couldn't make it. But Michelle, May, Una, Jessica, Jin, Jess, I can't thank you enough.
With apologies to 1970s rocker, Steve Miller. I'm a grinder. I'm an old school writer. I'm a middle of the street fighter.
And Still, you made me look smart. To my Boston University friends, Don Wright and Arunam Akrishna, Arunam as a new member, thanks for turning an old hack and flack into a professor.
My mother would have never believed it. To my daughter Sarah and her husband Cooper, two rising leaders in refugee and human rights communication, thank you for representing the Sheffer Kids tonight and for steadying my nerves today.
And finally to Barbara, my love and partner for nearly 40 years, thank you for being so strong and for putting up with all the weekends and vacations spent on the phone or away from you and the kids.
This honor is for both of us and since Bill told a story about Doreen, I'm going to tell a story about Barbara.
And I hadn't planned done doing, but it was probably 10 or 12 years ago. We're having our annual leadership meeting in Boca Raton, Florida.
We were living in Shelton, Connecticut at the time. And Barb was home with the four kids, and I was in sunny Florida.
And it was lunchtime and Barb called me and said that they'd had a major blizzard. The roads were blocked in, the plow guy didn't come.
The furnace wasn't working. And oh, by the way, our son Peter had gone sledding with the Boy Scouts hit his head on the snow and had a concussion and had to go to the emergency room.
And I was sitting poolside at the Boca Raton resort. And I said, honey, know, the rock crab is here.
And I appreciate all that. But I'm sure you can handle it. And she always did. Just amazing, amazing woman.
All right. Now for the stories. That was one. A little more than 25 years ago. I got in my four speed Ford Escort wagon with a George Pataki sticker on the bumper.
And I made the trip from our home in Schenectady, New York to GE World Headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. And I walked into the office of GE CEO, Jack Welch, for a job interview.
I was puzzled. Why would the world's most famous CEO want to meet me? After all, I was interviewing for a media relations job.
Jack's reason soon became clear. My current boss was the governor of New York, where GE had many issues. And Jack believed the governor sent me to GE to spy on the company. I am not kidding. So I figured it out right after Jack stared at me with his piercing blue eyes pointed at me and said, you're a spy.
Now, not many people know how Jack Welch talked. Now it's been many years. That is a perfect impersonation. Okay.
Jack was many things subtle was not one of them. I wasn't a spy. So Jack wanted to know what interested me about GE.
There were lots of places to do PR, to be a communicator, and he asked me again in his blunt way, why are you here?
And there were a few reasons, including that Barb and I had four children to support, but I also wanted the challenge.
I greatly admired the company and its history. It's global businesses. It's commitment to leadership. GE mattered. So I said, I always wanted to play for the Yankees.
I can't do that on the baseball field, but I can do it here. So this seems like the right time in place to say that I never expected to play for my favorite baseball team and end up in a Hall of Fame.
But we are here because Jack Welch loved being compared to the Yankees. So I probably wouldn't be at this podium tonight if not for Jack.
I definitely would not be here if not for his successor, Jeff M. Jeff believed deeply in the communications function and in the best possible way by making sure that our advice counted.
I remember one conversation in particular. was 2011. The United States was. still dealing from the global financial crisis. Unemployment was near the highest it had been in 30 years.
President Obama asked Jeff to volunteer and serve of what was informally called the Jobs Council. It was a nonpartisan group of business leaders who convened and devised strategies to ensure American competitiveness and strengthen the economy.
Yet it was controversial. Politics mostly. The other party propagandists, even a few customers and employees, they were waiting to beat up on Jeff.
So Jeff called me over the Christmas break and asked me if he should accept the President's offer. I had no better advice for him than to ask rhetorically, well, what's your no answer when the President of the United States calls and asks for your help?
Jeff agreed to do it quite courageously I should add. I thought a lot about that conversation as I prepared for tonight just as I thought a lot about that first meeting with Jack.
For me, they're connected. I think why are you here and what's your no answer are in some ways the same question, at least as they relate to Page and the work we do to advance the role of the Chief Communications Officer, and as they relate to us being trusted advisors, coaches, and mentors.
Why are we here? Why should we be active leaders even when it's less controversial and less risky to stay quiet?
Well, my answer is what's easy isn't always what's right. Our goal has never been just to have a title or an office in the C-suite, we have earned a say, but what's more important knowing the people in this room is that we have something to say.
We as communicators have expertise, insights, advice, and they're more important than ever. Now, over the past year, I've heard and read about companies and universities pledging neutrality on important public policy issues.
I understand that. And retreating on ESG and DEI, some suggest these initiatives are not core to their businesses. And it wasn't that long ago when the CEOs of the Business Roundtable came together and redefined the purpose of corporations saying they play an essential role in improving society, agreeing that a broader view is the key to long-term value, deciding together rightly that corporations should be committed to balance seeing the needs of all stakeholders. That was only five years ago. So what happened? It's also worth remembering that corporations have a proud history of promoting social good after listening to stakeholders such as on gay marriage in the United States and apartheid in South Africa.
What good company doesn't want to be socially responsible, environmentally responsible, well-run from a governance perspective. It seems to me it's just good business.
Now I want to be clear, I understand how difficult it is to make decisions that affect brand sediment and reputation, even the bottom line.
Budlight syndrome is real. fights are at an all-time high. We live in a polarized society and stakeholders with conflicting interests make these choices difficult.
I also realize that I acknowledge no longer work for a corporation or an agency. I am in a different place than most of you.
I am here as a friend to encourage and exhort, not to lecture. And in my view, given the varied interests of the modern corporation and other enterprises, neutrality seems impossible.
And in some cases, it may be irresponsible. At the very least, it's too easily interpreted as indifference. Holocaust survivor and Boston University professor Elie Wiesel warned in a 1999 speech about the perils of indifference.
He said, indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning. It is an end. How can we seem indifferent when stakeholders care about business issues, such as corporate tax policy, regulation, climate, where and how we work.
How can we seem indifferent when stakeholders are passionate about and often personally involved and invested in social issues, including human rights, voting rights, plus rights, and reproductive rights?
In an area of particular concern to Page and to me, how can we accept that varied stakeholders in an ever-changing world, no longer care about diversity, or that equity and inclusion are somehow now bad words?
How can or any organization argue that any of this is not core to what they do or who they are?
To be fair, I can't possibly know from the outside what exact considerations go into any decision to step back from DEI programs and commitments, even in some cases,
to end employee resource groups, I can only tell you, respectfully, what it looks like from the outside, capitulation to well-funded bullies.
So instead, I hope all of you will continue to advocate for DEI, something that In our industry, there is widespread agreement that we must do better on DEI.
Page's work has been outstanding. The diverse future program and the Diversity Action Alliance offer opportunities for all of us to get involved in advancing DEI.
The mentoring program is energizing and fun. I guarantee you, you will make a lasting decision. connection with a rising communicator.
So please, let's not give up. Let's not separate ourselves from the society that gives us permission to operate. Our job as communicators is to effectively manage the nuance and gray areas of our world.
It's to forge engagement, understanding, and compromise that bridge extremes, where we can. No other function thinks about the perception or the potential for fabricated perception manipulated by forces using sophisticated content, channels, and tools, the way we do.
And that discussion isn't just important for our organization, it's at the very society. This is not about endorsing any political candidate or taking positions on every issue.
Rather, I'm suggesting that we carefully reflect. and consider the future of a system that has made so many enterprises so successful.
We must help executives and clients develop and adopt a point of view that is consistent with their corporate values and their fiduciary duty and not radically inconsistent with the views of customers, employees, and partners.
This is the hardest task we face. So let's be intentional about our work. Let's understand that while companies, views will not necessarily reflect the views of their stakeholders every time, good companies will always listen and consider them.
And let's reflect on what we as PR and communications executives can do to protect and enhance our companies and clients.
And as we do, the rights and well-being of people, knowing what page stands for and the tremendous work it has done to strengthen the role of the Chief Communications Officer and looking at the impressive people assembled here and remembering all the immensely talented communicators I've had the privilege to work with, thinking of the potential of the next generation of PR leaders, the diverse group that page members are currently mentoring, I know we can do a lot, but not by being passive.
As communicators, we did not scratch and crawl our way all the way to the C-suite, so once we arrived, we could play it safe.
We did it because we developed a vision for engagement, for building trust, and for building social value. So, I ask, perhaps again rhetorically, what's our no answer for when stakeholders and society ask if we're willing to stand up and speak out?
Why are we here? We're here because you've earned a seat at the table. In fact, you've earned many seats at the table.
We have a voice, and if we use it, our voice can be the conscience. Now, I know all of that was pretty heavy.
So, I want to end with something fun. Those of you who have seen me with my shirt off, which, in this room, is only Barbara, no, I have a tattoo of Bruce Springsteen's guitar on my left arm.
I mention this because I realized that Page was the right group for me. When I read the page principle, prove it with action.
Well, that's what Bruce has been singing about for decades. If you know the song Badlands, he says, talk about a dream, try to make it real.
So if page equals Bruce Springsteen, therefore, Gary equals Bruce. Okay, and I'm going to end my talk with the way Bruce ends his concerts.
Good night, Moon Bay. Thank you. Thank you. Wow, that's outstanding, so congratulations again to two remarkable colleagues and leaders to Bill and to Gary, and thank you for being with us tonight for this very special evening.