Boerner, Henry (Hank)

Category: All Consultants, Crisis Management, Issues Management, Strategic Communications, Corporate Governance, Ethics, Accountability, Corporate Social Responsibility, Socially-Responsible Investing, Shareholder Activism

Editor – Author - Strategist – Trusted Advisor

Chairman,

The Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc.

And Editor & Publisher, “Accountability Central”

Henry (Hank) Boerner is a widely-published author, commentator and editor focused on a range of “accountability” issues.  He monitors key developments and conducts research and analysis on accountability developments and writes and edits news, commentary and research on these topics and issues:  corporate, institutional and public governance; corporate/institutional social responsibility; socially responsible/sustainable investment; financial reporting and disclosure; management trends; media coverage of business and finance; ethics; financial markets activities; the banking industry; and, the dynamics of the business-society relationship…and more.

He began his career as a journalist, editor and columnist, and has worked in the newspaper, magazine, newsletter, radio and television broadcasting fields as well as (currently) electronic publishing.  He served a number of corporations and organizations as senior communications manager and for most of the last three decades was a trusted senior advisor to leaders in the corporate, public and social sectors. He is well-known as an issues and crisis management consultant serving Fortune 500 companies, multinational enterprises, not-for-profits, public sector agencies, and other types of organizations.  His four-decade career includes experience in issue management, strategic corporate communications, crisis response and situation management, financial markets communications, publishing, and management consulting. 

Issue Identification – Analysis – Publishing

Much of his professional work, including extensive writing 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. Many of these issues spiral into crisis situations; in his career as a management consultant, Hank Boerner has been involved in more than 300 crisis events and situations, including many high-profile “headline” crises.

Tapping that deep and wide base of experience, Hank now 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 and became the full-time chair of the Governance & Accountability Institute in September 2007. (The Rowan & Blewitt brand closed when all partners retired; R&B was founded in 1984; Hank served as Managing Director – New York, 1992-2007.)

Prior Career Experience

Before becoming a consultant and senior advisor to clients, Hank Boerner served as a board-appointed 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 senior management team that pioneered broad reforms [including policy recommendations for rules for listed corporations and member firms]; these reforms were designed to bolster investor confidence in the markets, and became important elements of the broadening corporate governance movement of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Boerner has 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. He was American Airlines’ “citizenship officer” during the civil rights era of the 1960s and provided strategies and counsel to other major companies as they developed corporate social responsibility programs to address societal challenges.  In September 2001 Hank was the airline’s external responder to events in the New York region.

 

Hank Boerner is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), its Senior Roundtable, and is editor of NIRI’s professional audience publications-- NIRI IR Update and IR Mentor.  He is contributing editor and corporate governance columnist of Corporate Finance Review (RIA-Thompson journal for corporate financial officers); also, emerging issues commentator and contributing editor of Investor Relations Newsletter (BNA-IOMA).

Hank Boerner is Chairman-Emeritus of the Issues Management Council (IMC), and is a completing a term as board member of the global professional membership organization that 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.  Tapping his global experience, Hank was a member of the panel that conducted a two-year arbitration involving the first post-USSR business dispute for a Russian company.

Hank Boerner was recently to the Industrial Development Agency (commission) of the Town of Riverhead, New York, an 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) and advises the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility on issues.  He is also a member of the board of directors of the Hallockville Museum Farm (North Fork, Long Island, NY).

 

Read Corporate Governance Columns and other commentary by Hank Boerner at: http://www.accountability-central.com/voices-featured-commentators-and-bloggers/hank-boerner-columns  

Read his blog – “Accountability Matters” – at:  www.accountability-matters.com

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