International PR Guru to Visit India
New Delhi, March 26, 2003

David R Drobis, legendary public relations guru and Chairman of Ketchum, Inc., the seventh largest public relations global network, will be visiting India in April this year. This was announced by MelCole Public Relations, Ketchum's Indian affiliate.

David Drobis, who has been named among the top-10 most influential people in public relations in the 20th century by PR Week magazine is also the founding chairman and member of the Board of the Council of Public Relations Firms and currently President of ICCO (the International Communications Consultancy Organisation).

David Drobis is known for his innovative thinking, and has been called upon to address many international forums, including the recent ICCO Global Crossfire Summit and annual meetings of international PR societies. In a landmark speech entitled Is It Time To Stick Our Necks Out, delivered at the Forty-First Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards Dinner of the Institute for Public Relations, he said that while the dismal economic and business landscape of the past two years had turned many into ostriches, it was not the time for PR to be risk averse. PR needs to be proactive at such a time, identifying itself with, what he called, the "giraffes". Another of Drobis's originals 'Challenges in the Communications Economy', deals with the very real issues facing the profession in the post information age, post 9/11 and post Enron era.

David Drobis has spent most of his career at Ketchum, helping it grow from a single office specialized firm into one of the leading PR organisations with a network of 55 offices including 32 affiliates around the world, with 1400 employees and US$ 165 million turnover. Under Drobis, Ketchum established new practice standards, through award-winning creativity and strategy and its unique collaborative best teams approach to client servicing.

Drobis is a passionate believer in the dictum that international public relations should merge global and local expertise and adapt it to suit local conditions. As a result, he has lead Ketchum to establish a number of local affiliations, in south-Asian countries and around the world. In India, the same model is successfully replicated through an exclusive affiliation with MelCole Public Relations. In fact Ketchum was the first international PR organization to enter India, through its MelCole tie-up, way back in 1989.

During his trip, Mr. Drobis will be addressing a reception-seminar organised in his honour by MelCole PR. He will also address the India PR Summit 2003 at New Delhi, and preside over the ICCO board meeting.

About MelCole PR
MelCole PR is India's first independent Public Relations agency. Established in 1985, MelCole PR encompasses over fifty years of collective experience in PR practice in the Indian environment and has come to represent a finely balanced combination of local talent and expertise, coupled with international norms and practices of PR. MelCole PR has accumulated a portfolio of accounts that touch almost every sector of industry and business including Fortune 500 and transnational companies. MelCole PR has offices in all major metros of India. MelCole PR is an exclusive affiliate of Ketchum Public Relations, the world's sixth largest PR Agency network.

For further information, please contact:
Rohit Srivastava
Tel: (011) 268231188, 26311408 Fax: (011) 26821976
E-mail: Rohit_Srivastava@melcole.com