Each year, Reputation Institute recognizes a practitioner who has made significant contributions in the field of reputation management and communications. This year we honor Luis Bassat.

Luis Bassat was born in Barcelona in 1941. He is married, has four children and 11 grandchildren. Founder and Honorary Chairman of Bassat Ogilvy Group in Spain, has dedicated his professional life to advertising.

Doctor Honoris Causa by the Faculty of Communication and Humanities at the European University of Madrid, has received numerous awards throughout his brilliant career, the last one was the Creu Sant Jordi 2012, awarded by the Generalitat of Catalonia, the autonomous government. Author of The Red Book of Advertising (1993), The Red Book of Brands (1996), Personal Confessions of an Adman (2008), Business Intelligence (2011) The Red Book of Life (2013) and Creativity (2014).

Tireless traveler and communicator, is currently giving conferences worldwide, while supporting the Foundation Carmen and Luis Bassat, for needy people, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mataró, who will exhibit more than 1500 pieces of his collection.

Luis Bassat has contributed to the construction of numerous leading brands worldwide and is the teacher of several generations of Spanish and Latin American publicists.

Each year, Reputation Institute recognizes an academic who has made significant contributions in the field of reputation management and communications. This year we honor Francesco Lurati.

Francesco Lurati is a professor of corporate communication at the Faculty of communication sciences of the University of Lugano (Università della Svizzera italiana, USI), Switzerland, where he is also the academic director of both the Executive Master of Science in Communications Management (Executive MScom) program and the full-time MS program in Corporate Communication. He is the vice-director of the Institute of Marketing and Communication Management and the vice-dean of the Faculty.

He performs research in the field of corporate communication, in particular, its impact on corporate strategy, and in the areas of organizational identity, corporate reputation and social responsibility. He was educated as an economist at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland where he received his doctoral degree. He completed a post-doc at the University of California, Riverside. He has been widely published in academic journals such as Corporate Reputation Review, Journal of Public Relations Research and Corporate Communications (an international journal).

A long-time supporter of Reputation Institute, Francesco has been presented his research at a total of five of our annual conferences: Florida in 2004, Madrid in 2005, Beijing in 2008, Amsterdam in 2009, and this week in Milan 2012. He has also held positions in the public and private sectors, and regularly does consulting in the field of communications management. He is a member of the Foundation Board of the Swiss Public Relations Institute and the academic representative of the Reputation Institute in Switzerland.

This year we recognize Francesco Lurati for almost three decades of work in the field and award him a place in the Reputation Institute Hall of Fame.

• Director of Methodos, based in Milan and Rome
• Founding Chair of the Global Alliance for Public Relations

Expert in public relations, has work experience in Oil Industry Stanic, 3M Italy, L'Espresso, Blacksmith Publishers. MF Communications has created and founded (1974/76), SCR Associati, then Shandwick (1976-1994), On / Off interactive solutions (94-96), Methodos (1996/oggi).

He was president of IDOM (Enterprise Tomorrow) and IPR (Institute for Public Relations), Vice President and President of Ferpi (Italian Public Relations Federation), not only member of the Parliamentary Committee for Communications of the Chamber of Deputies in 1998 - 99 and General Secretary of the Committee on June 9 (for Electoral Reform) in 1992-93. Scientific Advisor in 2000-2001 of the Project on "Integrated Communication for Reform" launched by the Ministry of Public Administration and coordinator of the 1999 National Conference on adapting Information Technology Year 2000, sponsored by the Government. Founding President of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management.

Today he is a professor of global relations and public affairs to the executive Master in Public Relations and Corporate Communication at NYU (New York), public affairs at the School of Government at the LUISS University, a public relations at LUMSA.

Born in Columbus, Georgia, Dr. R. Edward Freeman received a B.A. in Mathematics and Philosophy from Duke University in 1973 and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Washington University in 1978. Dr. Freeman is an American philosopher and professor of business administration at the Darden School of the University of Virginia. Dr. Freeman is known for his work on stakeholder theory (1984) and on business works. From 1987 to 2009, he was director of Darden's Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, one of the world's leading academic centers for the study of ethics. Dr. Freeman is also a Professor of Religious Studies and a Faculty Advisor to the University’s Institute for Practical Ethics and Adjunct Professor of Stakeholder Management at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

Prior to coming to The Darden School Mr. Freeman taught at the University of Minnesota and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has co-edited recent editions of such standard business textbooks as The Portable MBA and the Blackwell's Handbook of Strategic Management, and serves as the editor for the Ruffin Series in Business Ethics from Oxford University Press. His latest book is Managing for Stakeholders with Jeffrey Harrison and Andrew C. Wicks, was published by Yale University Press on October 17, 2007.

He has received a number of awards for teaching excellence from The Wharton School, the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and The Darden School. In 1993 he was chosen for the Outstanding Faculty Award by the Darden student body, in 2001 he was honored by the World Resources Institute and the Aspen Institute with a Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 2005 he received the Outstanding Faculty Award from the Virginia State Council on Higher Education. In 1991, 1998, 2002, 2004, and 2007, he was selected by the graduating class of the Darden School to be a Faculty Marshall.

Dr. Evandro Vieira Ouriques, researcher and consultant, is known for his leadership through Mind Management, working with individual and organizational culture as a foundation for Sustainability and thus Democracy. He is a pioneer in the advance of the Theory of Communication and Culture ahead of the Sustainability Imperatives—Dr. Ouriques' first book, Ecologia Total, was written in 1975. Dr. Ouriques' focus is on the Psycho-Political Economy of Communication, which contains his sustainable theory of communication and operational methodologies, The Sustainable Mind Management: the Fourth—and last—Bottom Line (SMM) and Strategic Visual Diagnosis (SVD).

A cross-disciplinarian since 1984, Dr. Ouriques is a Coordinator with the Center of Trans-disciplinar Studies on Communication and Conscience with the Communication School of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Associate Researcher at the Advanced Program of Contemporaneous Culture, and Director of Communication and Culture with the Center of Future Studies at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. His main subjects are: Mental Territory and Action; Politics and Discourse; Involvement and Alternatives to Development; Multicultural Dialogue; Non-Dualism; Interest, Power and Gift; Digital Culture, Nets and Rights to Communication; Liberty and Social Bondage; Non-Violent Mental Status; Creative Mythology; and Image and Conscience. Dr. Evandro Ouriques is a member of Academic and Professional Associations in Brazil and overseas as well as editorial councils, and maintains numerous partnerships with organizations such as UNESCO.

From Dr Ouriques' extensive bibliography, highlights include: Diálogo entre as Civilizações: a experiência Brasileira (Dialogue between the Civilizations: the Brazilian experience, 2003); Território Mental: o Nó Górdio da Democracia (Mental Territory: The Democracy Gordian Knot, 2009); Gestão da Mente Sustentável: o desenvolvimento socioambiental como questão da comunicação e da consciência (Sustainable Mind Management: socio-environmental development as the question for communication and conscience, 2006).

• http://www.evandrovieiraouriques.com/ >

Dr. Geert Hofstede is Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University and a Fellow at the Center for Economic Research at the University of Tilburg. Hofstede is a pioneer of comparative intercultural research--his ideas and models are used worldwide to explain and account for culture in nations and organizations in both academia and practice.

Geert Hofstede founded and managed the Personnel Research Department of IBM Europe and was Co-founder and first Director, IRIC (Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation), the Netherlands. Dr. Hofstede is largely known for his landmark study of cultural differences across 70 nations and his model of five independent dimensions of national cultural differences: (1) Power distance, (2) Individualism, (3) Masculinity versus femininity, (4) Uncertainty, and (5) Long-term versus short-term orientation. Key publications include Culture's Consequences (1980, 2001), Cultures and Organizations: Software for the Mind (1996), Masculinity and Femininity: The Taboo Dimension of National Cultures (1998), among numerous other books and often cited articles.

• http://www.geerthofstede.nl >
• http://www.geert-hofstede.com/ >

S. Prakash Sethi is University Distinguished Professor, Academic Director of Executive Programs, and Professor of Management at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, The City University of New York and is President and Founder of the International Center for Corporate Accountability.

Dr. Sethi is an internationally renowned expert on international corporate codes of conduct and has been instrumental in advocating new approaches with regard to their formulation, implementation and performance evaluation. Dr. Sethi has had extensive front-line experience in the field of business ethics. Dr. Sethi has published 24 books and over 135 articles in professional and scholarly journals. He has extensively addressed, in his writings and in speeches around the globe, such topics as political advertising, corporate social responsibility, free markets and business ethics, dynamics of competition, corporate crimes, corporations and politics, corporate governance, economic development, international business and multinational corporations. He is the author, most recently, of Setting Global Standards: Guidelines for Creating Codes of Conduct in Multinational Corporations (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003). Dr. Sethi regularly advises and consults with multinational corporations, national governments and regulatory agencies, international and multilateral financial institutions on the issues of codes of conducts, their implementation, monitoring and verification. He serves on the boards of directors/advisors for a number of NGOs. He is also a member of editorial boards of various academic and professional journals.

• International Center for Corporate Accountability >
• Baruch College Zicklin School of Business >
• "A Toy Maker's Conscience", The New York Times, 23 December 2007 >
• "Buying Responsibly from Chinese Supply Chains" Ethical Corporation, December 2007 >

CK Prahalad is a professor, researcher, speaker, author and prominent consultant. Business Week has called him "a brilliant teacher at the University of Michigan" and also described him as "maybe the most influential thinker on business strategy today."

In addition to serving as the Harvey C. Freuhauf Professor of Business Administration at the University Of Michigan Business School, Prahalad specializes in corporate strategy and the role of top management in large, diversified, multinational corporations.

A prominent world-class guru, Professor Prahalad has consulted with the world's foremost companies, such as Ahlstrom, AT&T, Cargill, Citicorp, Eastman Chemical, Kodak, Oracle, Philips, Quantum, Revlon, Steelcase, and Unilever. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors of NCR Corporation, Hindustan Lever Limited and the World Resources Institute and services on the Board of Directors of NCR Corporation, Hindustan Lever Limited and the World Resources Institute.

• http://www.ckprahalad.com
• Members view video of C.K. Prahalad's acceptance speech at Reputation Institute's 11th Annual Conference >
• "Business Prophet: How strategy guru C.K. Prahalad is changing the way CEOs think" BusinessWeek, 23 January 2006 >
• "Can C.K. Prahalad Pass the Test?" Fast Company, July 2001 >

Wally Olins is a co-founder of Wolff Olins and was Chairman of the company until 1997. He is Chairman of Saffron Brand Consultants. He was awarded a CBE in 1999. He was nominated for the Prince Philip Designers Prize in 1999 and received the Royal Society of Arts' Bicentenary Medal for his contribution to design and marketing. Wally Olins has written several books including the seminal work Corporate Identity', first published in 1989 and reprinted many times, in many languages. "Trading Identities - how countries and companies are taking on each others' roles" was published by The Foreign Policy Centre, the UK Foreign Office think tank. His new book "Wally Olins On Brand" has just been published. He has advised many of the world's leading organisations on identity, branding, communication and related matters; these include 3i, Akzo-Nobel, Repsol, Q8, Tata, The Portuguese Tourist Board, BT, Prudential, Renault and Volkswagen. He has also worked with a number of countries on branding issues. He has acted as advisor to major strategic consultancies.

• http://www.wallyolins.com
• Members view video of Wally Olins' acceptance speech at Reputation Institute's 10th Annual Conference >
• "Brands: Who's wearing the trousers?" The Economist, 8 September 2001 >
• "Business Profile: The big name in the names game still has designs" Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2001 >