Paul Jensen is general manager of the New York office and also serves as head of the New York Corporate Practice. Paul advises a wide range of the firm’s clients on matters of corporate communications, crisis and issues management, marketing communications and brand positioning.
His experience spans various industries and assignments, including advising MasterCard Worldwide on various corporate/financial, marketing and public policy matters, IBM on building its reputation for innovation, the government of Bahrain on promoting economic development in the region, Nortel Networks and CIT Group on navigating sector downturns, Starbucks Coffee on crisis management issues, and Oliver Wyman on launching a new global brand in the management consulting field. He also has extensive experience in coaching senior executives on how to derive maximum benefit from their interactions with the media.
Prior to joining Weber Shandwick in 2005, Paul was President of Euro RSCG Magnet, an award-winning, U.S.-based public relations agency. One of the founders of the firm, he managed the agency’s Corporate/Financial, Technology and Professional Services practices. Before joining Magnet, Jensen was a partner at Kratz & Jensen, a 75-person public relations firm based in New York City. Before that, he served as media associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where he co-managed the international law firm’s marketing/media program. He began his communications career as a business reporter for Financial World magazine.
Jensen has spoken widely on the importance of public relations before diverse audiences, including the Innovation Forum of the Council of Public Relations Firms, National Investor Relations Institute, the Public Relations Society of America, the Forum on Public Relations Agency Profitability, and other university and industry conferences. His topics have included “Creating Leaders,” “Controlling Your Firm’s Image through the Media,” “Linking Pay to Agency Performance,” “Effective PR for Professional Service Firms” and “Building Virtual Communities.”
Paul enjoys both business writing and songwriting. His original and bylined articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Financial World, Investment Dealers’ Digest, Corporate Board, PRWEEK and Advertising Age. His musical compositions have been reviewed in The New York Times, Backstage and the Village Voice.
A graduate of Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences, Paul designed an independent major in consumer behavior theory. In graduate studies at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, he focused on organizational development.