Shorts: PR Week’s 2009 Power List

The new Power List published annually by PR Week is out and it’s nice to see Harris Diamond, agency guru and CEO of Weber Shandwick, at the top and doing so well in the face of the recession. … Also nice to see Leslie Dach, who has done such a wonderful job softening the face and improving the image of Walmart, climbing up the list so fast -- he's now No. 6. Leslie has been both an agency guy and now a corporate PR chief at Walmart -- and recently reshuffled his PR and ad agencies. As PR Week points out, all eyes are on Walmart whether the company wants the non-stop media attention or not – and Leslie has shown a unique ability to make this behemoth dance in the limelight … Elsewhere in the issue, on the back page is Don Spetner, who has been both chief publicist and chief PR industry recruiter for Korn/Ferry International. Don spent time earlier at SunAmerica, the financial services firm, and tells a great story about a successful celebrity-based campaign at Sun America that suddenly tanked when John Kennedy crashed his plane on the way to Hyannisport. The Kennedy tragedy sucked all the airtime out of the newsroom for weeks and media coverage for Don’s promising star-testimonials campaign dried up overnight. Don’s boss – a “cantankerous billionaire” (almost surely Eli Broad, then CEO of SunAmerica) – wanted an explanation. “So like any good corporate guy,” Don writes, “I blamed the agency.”