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PR stepping up a gear at Maersk
2 July 2008
Indications are emerging that Maersk - formerly an organisation with a culture of insularity - is trying to open up.
The company’s communications unit in Copenhagen has hired Elisabeth Rühne, former editor-in-chief of Berlingske Tidende, one of the main daily newspapers in Denmark. This comes not long after the appointment of Steen Reeslev as new head of the unit. Reeslev is a former journalist who was recruited from a position at Denmark’s biggest bank, Danske Bank.
The company says the aim is to increase Maersk’s communications outside Denmark where the company has most of its business and to build up a journalistic unit in Copenhagen. Another 4-5 journalists are planned for Copenhagen and freelance journalists outside Denmark will be hired.
Maersk used to pride itself on providing little in the way of public relations, arguing that the only beneficiaries were its competitors and financial speculators. ‘No comment’ was a regular comment to the media and the company motto was ‘the one that lives quietly lives well’.
Now, it would seem that recent negative publicity over redundancies and restructuring has spurred the company on to enter the world of spin.
Henrik Berlau of the 3F union says: "We see this as a part of the transformation process Maersk is undergoing right now. Maersk is stepping into the new millennium, where words like transparency are part of the daily business. We sincerely hope this also will be the case when it comes to their employees, where we are still waiting for Maersk to follow up on the statement from this year’s AGM to sign up to the UN Global Compact."
At this year’s AGM, Maersk Chairman Michael Pram Rasmussen said the company was thinking about joining the UN Global Compact. Over 4,000 companies worldwide have signed up. They commit themselves to aligning their operations and strategies with 10 universal principles on labour rights, human rights, the environment and anti-corruption.
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