Delivering Globally For Members 2019
Your Global Alliance President’s AGM Report
19th April 2020
Dear Members,
I was both honoured and humbled to be elected President of Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management last April 2019.
Having started my term on 1st July 2019, I took the earliest opportunity to connect and engage with our most important stakeholders – you, the 77 professional member organisations. The lifeblood of Global Alliance, you are our bridge to the almost 300,000 practitioners and academics we represent in more than 126 countries. While I have met many of you in person, I plan to continue to engage with you as often as possible to hear your frontline perspectives on how we can work together to better serve the profession.
Today, Global Alliance is a global, diverse and multicultural organisation representing professionals across religions, cultures, societies and races. Recent and very welcomed changes to our Bylaws mean we are now more inclusive than ever before, working closer together worldwide. These changes have met with widespread global support, allowing our organisation to become stronger, richer and true to our mission.
As President, I believe Global Alliance must continue to evolve to be more relevant and progressive. We are continuing to improve our structures, offerings and business model. With the full support of the board, we have made many improvements for the better and there is much more to come. As a member organisation, accountability, transparency and sound corporate governance are vitally important to us.
Enhancing Membership Benefits
We are fully committed to improving our member benefits and services to you, including advocacy, education and training programmes and skills and knowledge sharing.
As part of strengthening our member services, last July we established a full-time professional office co-located with our colleagues at APCE in Lisbon, Portugal. This provides a permanent ‘home’ from which to operate. One immediate membership benefit from this was the introduction of the new monthly Newsletter. Connecting our global profession and providing insights into Global Alliance news & features, member services, news, events, employment vacancies and your global ‘food for thought’!
In December 2019, we opened our regional hub in Jakarta, Indonesia, located at LSPR Communication & Business Institute. This allowed us enhance our own communication tools, having entered into a digital partnership with the Institute. Reinvesting in new marketing communication has produced an innovative Global Alliance film presentation along with the repositioning of our membership benefits package.
During 2019, we continued to strengthen our commitment to the rollout of the Global Capabilities Framework developed in partnership with University of Huddersfield, UK.
Many of you as Global Alliance member organizations have made good use of this framework and the accompanying software and network support which was provided free of charge as a benefit of your 2019 Global Alliance membership. The good news is that Global Alliance will continue to underwrite the cost ensuring you have free access until the end of 2020.
In wide use by individuals, teams, employers, academics and professional bodies around the world, the Global Capability Framework has to date been taken as reference to develop the national framework by the following member countries; Argentina, Australia, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the UK & the USA.
Meanwhile, valuable research continued apace throughout 2019, as the Global Public Relations and Communication Model was further developed in partnership with Corporate Excellence, Centre for Reputation Leadership. This publication will provide a roadmap on the future of communications and intangible assets management, helping to enhance the role of corporate communications professionals and ensuring our voice is heard and understood at the very highest level in organizations.
Three members of our board have taken a lead role in this initiative and I must acknowledge the huge contribution to date from past chair José Manuel Velasco; Dr. Amybel Sánchez and chair Dr. Ángel Alloza. We look forward to launching Global Public Relations and Communication Model this Autumn.
Other key new projects conceived and launched during 2019 included our inaugural Global Ethics Month (February 2020) and Global Diversity & Inclusion Month (June 2020) both under the leadership of Sarah Hanel, Ethics & Standards Director. With more than 60 countries and thousands of professionals participating across the four week period, Global Ethics Month became the most comprehensive engagement on world ethics the profession has ever seen. Members held webinars, hosted in-person conferences, panel discussions and events, ran Twitter chats, recorded videos, wrote articles and provided content for a global Ethics Resources page available to all and provided by the Global Principles of Ethical Practice in Public Relations and Communication Management.
Also, launched was the world’s first truly Global free Education & Training Months (April & May 2020) offering over 50 free educational and training sessions online from experts across the globe. This April initiative has now been extended into May to continue our support to the many thousands of fellow professionals worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic. This project is led by Dr Marcia DiStaso, Education Director and Alastair McCapra, New Projects Director.
Continuing the subject of education and standards, 2019 saw the establishment of Global Alliance’s Academic Council. The Council oversee our new Academic, Educational and Training Accreditation and Certification program which provides recognition and accreditation of our members qualifications, training and educational programs to fulfill our mission of raising professional standards worldwide. Through Accreditation & Certification, this policy enables Global Alliance to strengthen public relations standards, ethics, internationalization and professionalism worldwide, which we are mandated to undertake.
These projects and initiatives are designed to help advance our profession and especially that part of our mission that commits us to raising professional standards.
A practical step we have taken towards getting closer to our membership so that we hear you clearly and bring forward fresh thinking is the establishment of six Regional Councils North American, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, Africa and India-Middle East with the following chairs.
| Africa | Jane Gitau, African Public Relations Association, Kenya |
| Asia-Pacific | Prita Kemal Gani, Asean Public Relations Network, Indonesia |
| Europe | José Manuel Velasco, Dircom (Association of Communication Directors), Spain |
| India-Middle East | Amith Prabhu, The Promise Foundation, India |
| Latin America | Hamilton dos Santos, Aberje (Brazilian Association for Business Communications) |
| North America | Sarah Hanel, Canadian Public Relations Society |
Our Regional Councils worked effectively to narrow any gaps between the Alliance and members operating at the frontline in your professional bodies, thereby underlining the extensive global reach of our Alliance.
With increasing global reach this has enabled Global Alliance participate and host more programmes than ever before worldwide with engagements from Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Canada, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Lithuania, Malawi, Malaysia, New Zealand, Mexico, Norway, Nigeria, Philippines, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, UAE, the UK, the USA, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In October, Global Alliance oversaw and stood witness to a historic friendship and cooperation agreement between the ASEAN Public Relations Network (representing 10 countries: Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam) and the Public Relations & Global Communications (PRGC-17PR) was signed to promote the highest ethical standards and behaviours so that the profession earns and retains the respect of all those it interacts with.
Along with our hardworking board of directors and members of our Regional Councils, we now have over 50 worldwide ambassadors, providing us with tremendous diversity and a truly innovative outlook.
The second half of 2019 was truly memorable with plenty of standout moments from our global partnership with Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) at their conference in San Diego to Global Alliance holding its first ever regional conference in Hangzhou, China in conjunction with the Public Relations & Global Communications, not to mention the many other highlights in between.
Corporate Governance & Compliance
To ensure we exemplify the highest standards of corporate governance and compliance, we undertook a major governance review that examined Global Alliance. An extensive review of the Bylaws was undertaken with major changes proposed to ensure they are fit for purpose, reflecting the organisation’s strategic plan and the current demands of a professional global membership organisation.
The review resulted in eleven new Policy Documents being created and implemented to guide both the current board and future directors.
Board Meeting
Board Director Nominations & Nomination Committee
Regional Councils
Membership Services and Benefits
Receipt of Membership Dues and Other Funds
Purchases and Payments
Communications & Digital
New Projects
Sponsorships, Partnerships and Alliances
Complaint Against Member Organisation
Accreditation & Certification
As a Board, we also moved to enhance transparency around the Nomination Committee and process for Board Election. Following this review both the Nomination Committee & process for Board Election have been restructured.
As a board, we restructured the leadership of Global Alliance focusing on best practice with the appointment of directors focused on key priority areas for our profession.
The following key Director appointments were implemented in July 2019.
| Education | Dr Marcia DiStaso, University of Florida, USA |
| Ethics & Standards | Sarah Hanel, Canadian Public Relations Society |
| Membership Services | Paula Portugal Mendes, Portuguese Association of Corporate Communication |
| Communications & Digital | Fiona Cassidy, Public Relations Institute of New Zealand |
| Sponsorship & Partnerships | José Manuel Velasco, Dircom (Association of Communication Directors), Spain |
| Finance & Funding | Joe Truncale, Public Relations Society of America, USA |
| New Projects | Alastair McCapra, Chartered Institute of Public Relations, UK |
This corporate governance and transparency review will ensure that we serve our profession in the best manner possible.
With your support, Global Alliance played a much stronger role in representing our profession and promoting ethical standards and professional development worldwide. We are fully committed to the Global Principles of Ethical Practice in Public Relations & Communication Management. Adopted worldwide by your members, we continued the work to see these principles endorsed and formally recognised by major global organisations so the highest ethical standards become our profession’s baseline.
Within the last twelve months, we have held thirteen Global Alliance management meetings, including nine board meetings, four of which were held ‘in-person’. This represents a huge voluntary time commitment by those involved and I thank each and every one of them for this.
Along with the other board members – Candy Hernandez, LSPR and Dr Rotimi Oladele, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations - as well as Mateus Furlanetto, Chief Administrative Officer, I have never seen such enthusiasm, passion and ambition for our profession. This certainly is a ‘can do’ board – part of my job is channelling that energy!
Membership Growth & Financial Stability
Business activities increased substantially during 2019 as evidenced by the number of programs, funding initiatives, and membership recruitment efforts implemented. To ensure best accounting practice we undertook an internal Audit Review during 2019 introducing additional procedural measures to protect the organization.
As our membership has grown and diversified, so too has the importance of ensuring we operate on a more sound commercial footing so that we can continue to reinvest. Current membership stands at 77 which represents a huge 55% increase since January 2019.
We have set a stretching target for Global Alliance to have 100 members by the end of 2020 - while ambitious, I believe this is achievable with both your support and that of the board.
While our membership number is one important metric, the real measure for us is our member satisfaction and retention rate reflecting how we deliver for you.
Increased financial stability was achieved during 2019, with overall income up 49%. This included partnership funding of CHF 34,160.14, representing an increase of 427% compared to the previous year, secured by three global partners Banco Santander, Edelman & MCD. Along with increased membership numbers the total operating surplus was CHF 24,285.49 representing an overall year on year improvement of 12.3%.
So, please continue to partner with us on this exciting journey. We are stronger together.
2020 is the year to think global, go global and be global with your Global Alliance. Together, we can help make the 2020s a decade of renewal and growth for our profession and ensure that we hand it on to future generations in the best shape possible.
Finally, I wish to extend a heartfelt thanks to all my fellow board members and directors as without their ongoing input, contribution and support (all of which they provide on a wholly voluntary basis), the above support measures would not be possible.
Thank you for your continued support and leadership – please, please stay safe,
Thank you,
Justin Green Hon. Life Fellow APRA, Hon. Life Fellow PRSK, Life Fellow PRII, Hon. Life Fellow ABERJE, Hon. Life Fellow ASEAN, Hon. Life Fellow PRGC, Hon. Life Fellow EIC
President, Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management