C.V.

Name:             LIONEL STANBROOK M.A. (Oxon)

Contact:          cjlcs50@gmail.com, +7734 970163   

Nationality:    UK  

Lionel Stanbrook is an accomplished communicator, editor, copywriter, and strategic adviser. He has worked as the speechwriter for the President of the European Parliament, the President of the African Development Bank, and for several CEOs and political leaders. He has considerable experience adding value as a leader in strategic communications, thought leadership, and stakeholder engagement at senior levels in the public and private sector, EU institutions, multinational companies, international institutions, agencies and trade associations.

 

WORK HISTORY:

Nov 2016 – January 2020: AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire

POSITION:             CHIEF OF COMMUNICATIONS / SENIOR EDITOR and PRESIDENT’S SPEECHWRITER

Responsibilities:

• Chief of communications, public affairs and external relations department
• Senior Editor for significant Bank publications and proposals approved by the Board
• Lead on management and alignment of messages and policy development
• Senior speechwriter and communications advisor to the President for speeches, articles, op-eds, blogs and texts
• Initiating and maintaining excellent professional relationships with internal stakeholders on key issues
• Identification and development of online media analysis, social media engagement, working with in-house teams
• Managing relations and contracts with consultants and agencies
• Lead on internal communications strategy, policy and research management

 

 Key Achievements:

• Helping to transform the international perception of the President to that of being an insightful and inspirational global influencer and thought leader on African economic development issues
• Development of a central online corporate message directory of positions, policies and commitments for use, inter alia, in brand communications, social media, information, news reporting and research material.
• Re-designed and restructured the Bank’s communications function so that it related closer to institutional strategy and was coherent with partnerships and stakeholder engagement.
• Accompanying the President on key foreign missions and in meetings with national presidents, prime ministers and ministers of finance, discussing Bank investment projects, policies and programmes

 

 

June 2015 – December 2015: WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME, Rome, Italy

POSITION:             SENIOR EDITOR and COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER (contracted)

Responsibilities:

• Advising and assisting the Executive Director (Ertharin Cousin) in a review of WFP communications policy, reputation and news management in the light of the Zero Hunger policy and action responsibilities under the SDGs
• Speechwriting, editing, developing communications, social media, reputation and public relations management
• Message and policy development; media analysis, thought leadership and social media engagement
• Management of issue and reputation management systems
• Narrative, editorial and story creation for online communications and social media

 

Key Achievements:

• Wrote comprehensive internal report on the communications arguments for and against accepting a commercial and working partnership proposal from a major global multinational food company. This was qualified by senior management as an indispensable document for making the final decision on an acutely controversial issue
• Led the preparatory meetings with the prospective partner; and drafted the first advisory opinion
• Developed an audit and reputation management exercise for future partnering initiatives
• Took major role in the comprehensive re-evaluation of the WFP’s communications and external relations, including reputation, social media and news management, for the Zero Hunger action responsibilities under the SDGs
• Developed a working “message house” for key issues in external relations and reputation management

 

 

JAN 2012 – NOV 2016: CLEMENT REPUTATION GmbH Basel, Switzerland

POSITION:             MANAGING PARTNER and SENIOR EDITOR

Responsibilities:

• Development of communications, advocacy, and CEO senior strategic and advisory services
• Development of corporate communications and strategic advisory programmes for multinational organizations, thought leadership, advocacy, reputation management, training, and stakeholder engagement services
• Message and policy development; media analysis, editorial, online and social media management

 

Key Achievements:

• With the French PR agency Cohn & Wolfe, I arranged and led a group of French senators in a fact-finding expedition to the Indonesian rain forest in July 2013, investigating and reporting on practices involved in palm oil and pulp and paper production. I wrote and published their report, whose recommendations led to changes in French policy on forest products’ sustainability.
• I coordinated a team of writers and edited the highly successful and extensively redesigned 2014 and 2015 editions of the Annual Report of Roche, Basel, Switzerland.
• I wrote and edited the highly praised staff journal of the Huntsman Corporation for 4 years and 10 issues 2012-16
• I developed a corporate communications training programme, ICEPICK, for senior business executives.
• I wrote, edited, designed and published a series of articles in brochure form for the Syngenta Foundation on smallholders and land use in Africa. These articles have since been reprinted and republished many times in training-related publications.
• Interim communications director and editorial specialist at several companies including Roche, Novartis, Huntsman, Colgate Palmolive, and Syngenta Crop Protection.

 

 

JUN 2004 – JAN 2012: SYNGENTA INTERNATIONAL GmbH, Basel, Switzerland

POSITION:             GLOBAL HEAD OF REPUTATION MANAGEMENT, COMMUNICATIONS & THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Responsibilities:

• Global corporate communications, thought leadership and external relations
• Speechwriter to Chairman, CEO and Board members
• Directed corporate message development, maintaining company and brand positioning
• Built global communications network of reputation management, social media and crisis communications processes
• Produced a comprehensive thought leadership programme for managers and senior staff
• Chair of brand values – internal discussions and corporate decisions.
• Company ‘thought leader of the year’ 2008
• Company representative on trade association boards meeting regularly in Brussels
• Global responsibility for issue and crisis management, including seeds, pesticides, GMOs, land rights and IP issues 

 

Key Achievements:

• Produced a successful thought leadership programme, mentioned in media as “exemplary and mould-breaking”
• I set up extensive training sessions for junior staff on how to write succinctly and effectively for media audiences. These were chosen by the Business Round Table of Basel as examples of especially effective training.
• I was commended for an outstanding reaction to a communications emergency in 2007 involving the reporting of our products. This commendation became a company award made the same year.
• In Performance Assessment reports I was rated “Outstanding Achievement” for 4 years consecutively, and won the highest level of annual bonus.

 

OTHER POSTS

2002 – 2004           Managing Director and Partner at PRM European Lobbyists Ltd, Brussels

2001 – 2002          Managing Director at DLA Upstream, London

1991 – 2001           Director of Communications & Deputy Director General, Advertising Association, London

1989 – 1991           European Director at Shandwick Public Affairs, London

1983 – 1989           Communications Director, European Parliament, Brussels

• Speechwriter, spokesman, and press officer for Lord Plumb, President of the European Parliament

President’s Cabinet and European Parliament Political Staff, Brussels

1983                       Europolitique, Brussels

• Journalist and freelance/stringer for UK daily newspapers, agency reporter

1982 – 1983          European Commission, Brussels

• Speechwriter and Editor in the Cabinet of Sir Ivor Richard, as communications and media adviser

1981 – 1982           House of Commons, Westminster, London, UK, Research Assistant.

1978 – 1981           Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, UK, Copywriter and Publicity Assistant.

 

EDUCATION

1975 – 1978         Pembroke College, Oxford University

• MA Oxon (BA Hons in Modern History and Modern Languages)

1973                       Milton Academy, Boston, USA, Exchange Scholar

1970-1974            Westminster School, London, Exhibition Scholar;

 

REFERENCES:

Nafissattou Diouf (for work with African Development Bank) n.diouf@afdb.org

Wynne Morris, (for work with Clement Reputation) wynne_morris@huntsman.com

Fionnuala Tennyson (for work with World Food Programme), fionnualatennyson@hotmail.com

Mark Titterington (for work with Syngenta International GmbH). mwtitterington@btinternet.com

Dr. Robert Ramsay, Chef de Cabinet for President of the European Parliament 1987-9 ramsayrobert@hotmail.com

 

“Lionel has a gift for words. In written or spoken form, he can turn the complex into the concise, or the chaotic into the coherent. He is strategic, so possesses the talent to chip away the irrelevant and expose the core of a problem in ways like no one else I have ever met. He can take a situation that stumps and stretches many and turn it into a solidly practical solution that people will buy into.” – Steve Virgin, Managing Director, Media Focus

 

“Lionel is a great pleasure to work with – fast, reliable, well-grounded, to-the-point, methodical, inquiring, tactful, diligent and good-humoured even in adversity. His range of thought, depth of insight and ability to communicate the results impress me again and again.” – Paul Castle, Director of Communications, Syngenta Foundation

 

Honours, Awards, Publications, Society Memberships & Fellowships

1983                       Winner of the Japan/Europe Essay Prize, Japanese External Relations Ministry

1984                       Author of European Industry and International Competition, European Reports

1998 – 2004         Visiting lecturer on marketing regulation at the University of the Sorbonne, Paris II

1999                       Editor of the Commercial Communications Compendium, Advertising Association

2000                       Corporate Communicator of the year award, Campaign magazine, UK

2009 – 2012          Vice-President of the Board of the Issue Management Council

2019                       Africa Editor, worldeconomics.com

 

Languages:                                                            English (mother tongue), French (fluent), Spanish (advanced).

 

 

February 2020