User talk:Lenpr

LEONARD SAFFIR

Leonard Saffir is an award-winning public relations and marketing professional whose career also spans journalism and publishing.

From 1984 through 1990, Saffir was executive vice president of Porter Novelli International, one of the world’s largest public relations/marketing firms and part of the giant advertising conglomerate Omnicom. Saffir's duties included company management, new business development and supervision of accounts in the areas of consumer products, crisis communications, sponsorships, litigation, film and television, entertainment, special events, marketing, and automotive. He was one of the firm’s most creative executives participating in all brainstorming sessions. For long-time client Philip Morris, Saffir developed and worked on numerous major projects in corporate image, sports, entertainment, music and the arts. He played a major role in the highly successful Marlboro Country Music program; Virginia Slims Women’s Tennis and led Marlboro into Indy Car auto racing. He created Porsche USA’s first crisis communications plan and developed a technology-driven pressroom for the giant Detroit Auto Show for Michelin. Other former clients include MasterCard, Pepsi Cola, Bristol-Myers, Mattel, General Foods, Kraft, Amtrak, Johnson & Johnson and Gillette, whose Sensor razor launch has been listed as one of the top 10 greatest PR programs of all times. His work during litigation, representing the owner of the 5-star La Mansion Hotel, San Antonio, v Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, led to a settlement for his client of tens of millions of dollars.

Saffir is the author of Power Public Relations, How to Get PR to Work For You, hard cover,'92; paperback, '94. It was a main selection of the Executive Program book club. A second book, Power Public Relations: How to Master the New PR, was published in January 2000 by McGraw-Hill and was a featured selection of the American Marketing Association. It was required reading by marketing and communications departments at many colleges and universities. McGraw-Hill published a Palm Digital Edition in 2002; Microsoft Reader and e-Books marketed an online edition. His third book on public relations -- PR on a Budget -- was published in December 2006.

Saffir was a founder of the New York Standard, an award winning daily newspaper published during a 114-day newspaper strike that sold more than 25 million copies, carried three million lines of advertising, and showed a profit of several million dollars on some $10 million in revenue. He was a founder and publisher of the Latin American Times, an English daily newspaper praised by President Lyndon Johnson. He founded and served as publisher, editor-in-chief and president of The Trib, New York's first new morning newspaper in 38 years and praised by Rupert Murdoch. Three former members of Presidents Reagan and Ford cabinets served on the company’s Board of Directors. He was publisher and editor of The Sun, an award-winning weekly newspaper published in New York’s Hamptons.

He served for six years as chief of staff and press secretary to U.S. Senator James L. Buckley (R-NY) and was involved in all phases of the senator’s work: legislative, political and press. He traveled worldwide with Sen. Buckley for meetings with foreign heads-of-state from Japan and Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War to West and East Berlin and Russia during the cold war.

Saffir has worked in numerous political campaigns in this country and abroad. He has worked with President Bush (the elder) and Reagan. He developed and implemented the strategy that led to Ferdinand Marcos’ first election as president of the Philippines. Saffir was a key member of Senator Buckley’s winning campaign staff in 1970 and served as the senator’s campaign manager in his 1976 campaign. He served as campaign manager in New York State Senator John Marchi’s run for mayor of New York City. .

Saffir served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a public information specialist. Following his military service, he was a U.S. and foreign correspondent for Hearst in New York, Dallas and Tokyo. He has written for many publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Miami Herald, Good Housekeeping Magazine and others. Saffir has received numerous journalism awards including the Sigma Delta Chi Professional Journalistic Society for distinguished journalistic achievement and multiple awards and citations from the NY State Press Association and the Overseas Press Club of America. The Union League and Wharton Clubs of New York have honored him. Saffir is a past president of the Overseas Press Club of America, the nation’s largest association of journalists engaged in foreign news reporting. He was co-producer of a national one-hour Public Broadcasting System television special, An Evening with Mark Twain.

Saffir received the Public Relations Society of America's prestigious Silver Anvil and Big Apple awards and a PRSA Certificate of Commendation, and the Benjamin Franklin Award from the Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Northern New Jersey. His Big Apple award was for developing a public relations program called “The Tenement” executed for client Philip Morris.

Since relocating to Palm Beach County, Florida in 1992, Saffir has been engaged in public relations and marketing consulting and writing. For two years he was an investigative reporter and columnist for a chain of Palm Beach County weekly newspapers.