Henry (Hank) Boerner is a widely-published author and commentator and trusted senior advisor to leaders in the corporate, public and social sectors. He has been a well-known issues and crisis management consultant for three decades, serving Fortune 500 companies, multinational enterprises, not-for-profits, banks and financial services companies, and other types of institutions and organizations. He has deep experience in issue management, strategic corporate communications, crisis response and critical situation management, financial markets communications, publishing, and management consulting.
Hank Boerner is recognized for his experience and expertise in corporate and institutional governance, institutional accountability, corporate social responsibility practices, and sustainability. He has earned a reputation as an independent advisor who helps leaders do the right things for the right reasons.
Much of his professional work, including extensive writing and commentary for management and professional audiences, is based on his identification, monitoring and analysis of emerging issues and trends that affect business corporations, public sector agencies, institutions and non-profits, and trade and professional associations.
He writes commentary and opinion for professional journals on governance and accountability topics and the effects of challenges posed to the managers and directors of corporations, not-for-profits, trade associations and the public sector by the financial community, institutional investors, shareowner activist organizations, media, and public sector agencies.
Hank Boerner retired from the former Rowan & Blewitt global issue and crisis management organization in summer 2007. (The well-known brand closed when all senior partners retired; R&B was founded in 1984; Hank served as Managing Director - New York, 1992-2007.) He serves as chairman of the Governance & Accountability Institute, and as senior advisor of R&B Associates.
Before becoming a consultant and advisor, Hank Boerner served as a board-elected officer and senior communications manager for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), responsible for strategic communication with listed companies, NYSE member firms, institutional and individual investors, US and foreign media, the Congress, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Boerner was a member of the NYSE's revamped management team pioneering broad reforms [including listing rules and policy recommendations for regulatory and public policy issues affecting listed corporations and member firms]; these concepts were designed to bolster investor confidence in the markets, and became important elements of the corporate governance movement of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Hank Boerner held senior management, marketing, communications and public affairs posts with the N.Y.S. Metropolitan Transportation Authority and at American Airlines, and was a member of New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller's administration over two terms of his administration. (The governor later became vice president of the United States). Hank was American Airlines' "citizenship officer" during the civil rights era of the 1960s and provided strategies and counsel to other major companies as those firms also developed corporate social responsibility programs.
Boerner began his career as a financial and business newspaper and magazine editor, and radio and television business broadcaster. He has been active in the publishing sphere (print, broadcast and now electronic) for four decades.
He actively participates in key professional membership organizations. Hank Boerner is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), its Senior Roundtable, and served as editor of NIRI's professional audience publications-- NIRI IR Update and IR Mentor. He has been contributing editor and corporate governance columnist of Corporate Finance Review (RIA-Thompson journal for corporate financial officers) since the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.
Hank Boerner serves as Chairman of the Governance & Accountability Institute. He is also Chairman-Emeritus of the Issues Management Council (IMC), and as a board member of that global professional membership organization which advances the best practices in the issue management discipline. He has long served as an independent arbitrator and mediator for major business disputes; is a Member of the Panel of Arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association; and member of the American Bar Association's Section of Resolution Dispute. He was a member of the Molloy College Business Ethics Advisory Committee and the Dowling College Business Advisory Council.
Hank Boerner was a board member of the Industrial Development Agency (commission) of the Town of Riverhead, New York, a public sector organization that works with business organizations seeking to re-locate to or expand in this eastern Long Island region. Boerner also serves as pro bono advisor to the 600-member National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), the 275-member Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), and the 800-member Long Island Council of Churches (LICC). Hank is a member of the Board of Directors of the Hallockville Museum Farm on Long Island's North Fork.
Statement: Throughout my career I have had wonderful opportunities to work with great leaders, and great colleagues who worked in various levels of their organizations and institutions. The greatest reward always came as we helped individuals and organizations to do the right things for the right reasons. And doing the right thing is not always easy - often, it is the hardest path to follow, and the longest journey for a leader. But that is how critical issues and crises are resolved, or at least mitigated, how arguments are won in the Court of Public Opinion, how public policy debates are shaped (and their outcomes decided), and how stakeholders and constituents are won over, or at least an accommodation reached (with them). DTRT is not easy but it's usually the best way to win friends and influence people, as the life coach Dale Carnegie would advise.
We have unique system of democratic capitalism in the United States, and in my work I do everything in my power and reach to support and enhance that system. As a nation we have so much to be thankful for. And so much of importance to take care of for the future generations. The great can-do system of the American People - the American Spirit - is not something we should take for granted. We can undermine our spirit through greed, arrogance, hubris, indifference, and a dozen other management sins. In the spirit of that famed philosopher, Jiminy Cricket of Pinocchio fame, I often sit on the shoulder of leaders (through my writing, commentary and advising) to help men and women of accomplishment and vision as they strive to do the right thing!
Read Corporate Governance Columns and other commentary by Hank Boerner at:
http://www.accountability-central.com/voices-featured-commentators-and-bloggers/
