| Q & A 07.16.09 9:00 AM |
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Microsoft's Rosalind Murphy Targets New Clients With Female-Focused Events
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FROM NEW YORK
As executive engagement manager at Microsoft’s New York office, Rosalind Murphy is something of a social liaison between her account managers and the Fortune 500 clientele they serve. She produces activities and meetings to develop brand relationships, with guest lists often limited to C.I.O.s and other I.T. executives—not surprising in the tech sector. But Microsoft desires to deepen its business ties, and part of Murphy’s job is to increase her company’s contacts within its client base.
Used to working with male-dominated technology departments, Murphy expanded her brand’s network with a series of quarterly events just for women. In the two years since she introduced the Women’s Executive Forum, she has already established it as a popular event series, buoyed diversity at other Microsoft functions, and increased contacts within clients such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Sony.
What sparked Microsoft’s push to seek out more female clients?
We just wanted to reach out to women. The staff at Microsoft is about 75 percent male, and one of the things we found in our accounts was that when you get to the customer base, the chief information officers are also typically men. We wanted to develop other executives, so we made this a push to find people beyond the normal I.T. roles in different areas like marketing and finance. We wanted to seek out the developing female executives, women who might be in director or vice president roles now but are up-and-coming in our client base.
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Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Sony |
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| NEWS 04.15.09 2:49 PM |
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In the News: Bloomberg and Vanity Fair to Cohost, the Masters Suffers From Lack of Sponsors
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Vanity Fair and Bloomberg Team Up: The economy may have Vanity Fair and Bloomberg News down, but they’re not out. Instead of canceling their respective White House Correspondents’ Association dinner after-parties, the media brands will join forces for a cohosted party at the residence of French Ambassador Pierre Vimont. In the past several years, Bloomberg had hosted the most prominent after-party, while Vanity Fair was a more recent entry. The duo will now divvy up 300 invites, making it one of the more exclusive events after the May 9 dinner. [Politico]
Auto Show Attendees Get Nasty: Attendees at the New York International Auto Show are venting their frustrations with the economy, and they’re taking it out on some unexpected parties. Presenters, who aren’t even full-time employees of the carmakers, have been heckled on the show floor since it opened to the public last week. Largely contract representatives for bail-out recipients General Motors and Chrysler, the put-upon presenters have been accused of putting out bad product, waiting until the 11th hour to be eco-conscious, and in one case, even responsibility for the war in Iraq. [NYT]
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Vanity Fair, Bloomberg News, White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, White House Easter Egg Roll, Desirée Rogers, Barack Obama, Fergie, New York International Auto Show, General Motors, Chrysler, The Masters, Citigroup |
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| NEWS 03.11.09 10:46 AM |
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In The News: Citigroup Corporate Gifts Cause Stir, Gaultier Dirties Parisian Runway
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Citigroup Offers Gift In Lieu of Incentive Trip: After canceling its annual destination retreat, Citigroup doled out $3.5 million in gift cards to the top 2,000 brokers at its Smith Barney unit. The bailout recipient has taken flack from some of the media but maintains that the cost is a minor expense compared to the annual revenue generated by the brokers and that the firm needs to hold onto valued employees in the competitive market. [NY Post]
Prada Follows Chanel’s Lead: Plans have been finalized for Prada’s pyramidal mobile pavilion, the Prada Transformer, which will debut in Seoul, Korea, this April. The structure will host art exhibitions, film screenings, and live events. Cranes will occasionally flip the Transformer—when it’s empty, we assume—to reconfigure the shape and visitors’ experiences at the different programs. There aren’t any plans to move the structure after its five-month stay in Seoul, unlike Chanel’s eighty-sixed touring pavilion. [Dezeen]
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Citigroup, Prada, Chanel, Carnival Cruise Lines, Jean Paul Gaultier, Jay Leno |
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| NEWS 01.28.09 1:06 PM |
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In the News: Somber Times Kill Davos Party, Guerrilla Marketers Help Inauguration-Goers Make Friends
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Here's are a few stories grabbing our attention this week:
Financial Forecast Calls for Subdued Davos: The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is taking an unsurprisingly somber tone this year. C.E.O.s of corporations like Citigroup and Sony have opted not to attend; the celebrity contingent is all but nonexistent; and the opulent parties of the past seem to be long gone. Goldman Sachs is among the biggest names ditching their perennially hot ticket parties, and although Brit bank Barclays is said to be going ahead with theirs, company president Bob Diamond just canceled his trip yesterday. [FT]
HuffPo and Meetup Help Obama Fans Network: By using street teams to hand out branded name tags in Washington, the Huffington Post and community organizing Web site Meetup attempted to introduce half a million strangers to each other at last week's inauguration. Creative agency Interference Inc. enlisted about 180 people to pass out the tags, and trucks had to deliver the 500,000 stickers two days in advance because of closed street traffic. [BrandFreak]
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Inauguration 2009, Davos, Huffington Post, Meetup, Condé Nast, Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Citigroup |
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