Kate James, chief communications officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will headline the IPR 52nd Annual Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner, November 21 at the Yale Club of New York City. 

Addressing "The Business of Changing the World," James will relate the role of communications to the Gates Foundation's results-oriented focus on global poverty, health and education.

The IPR Alexander Hamilton Medal for career contributions to public relations practice and effective use of research will be presented to Björn Edlund.  He is non-executive chairman of Europe, Middle East and Africa for Edelman and the first recipient of the medal from outside the U.S.

Tickets to the event are $500 per person or $5,000 for a table of ten.

In the third (conscious leadership) and fourth (conscious culture and management) tenets of conscious capitalism, Mackey and Sisodia highlight the importance of not only trust, but also love and care within organizations.  These elements are key in leadership, culture, and management, they argue, particularly when tough decisions regarding downsizing, outsourcing, and personnel changes need to be made. 

Given public relations' focus on relationship building and maintenance, counseling management on how firms can demonstrate love, care, and concern to employees during good and bad times should be the norm for practitioners.  Their effectiveness in doing so, however, is directly determined by the extent to which love, care, and a purpose higher than profit-making guide executive decision making.  In conscious capitalism, they do, thereby allowing public relations practice to be conscious, too.