2011 WINNERS' GUIDE PUBLISHED: The winners were announced on January 19, 2012 at the awards cocktail reception held at The Fullerton Hotel in Singapore Click here to download the 32 page guide to the winning entries and shortlisted nominations.

A WELCOME FROM STEVEN R. OKUN, 2011 GOLD STANDARD AWARDS CHAIRMAN

Welcome to the website of The 2011 Gold Standard Awards – the only programme recognising excellence in the field of Asia-Pacific related public affairs and corporate communications. This year’s entries, numbering nearly 150, illustrate that the awards are now firmly embedded in the region’s public affairs and communications landscape.

The programme identifies a broad range of work in public affairs, social media, NGO engagement, issues management, stakeholder relations, trade promotion and corporate reputation. Developing and building relationships between business, government and civil society continues to grow in importance as we face a world of global turbulence and technological change.

Two new categories were introduced this year – one in corporate financial communications, and a second in the area of public-private partnerships, further broadening the range of specialist communications work recognised by The Gold Standard Awards.

Winners this year include a wide range of companies, government bodies, NGOs, consultancies and embassies. This guide showcases their achievements. The record-setting number of entries means that the competition to become shortlisted was very tough, and to be recognised as the “gold standard” in any category is a significant accolade from the industry’s leaders.

Worthy of note this year are Weber Shandwick, which secured one award, a client-related award and a commendation, and Kraft Foods, which won the coveted corporate responsibility award and was nominated in a second category. We would also like to congratulate the US Embassy in Indonesia, which secured The Gold Standard Award for Diplomatic Engagement, and the US Embassy in New Zealand, which won The Gold Standard Award for Social Media Communications.

I would like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to all the judges for their work in giving the awards strength and integrity, and to the sponsors whose support makes the Gold Standard Awards a continuing and growing success. Finally, I would like to thank all those who entered the programme, helping to showcase real achievement across a diverse and sophisticated range of projects.

Steven R. Okun
Director of Public Affairs (Asia Pacific) KKR and Chairman
of The 2011 PublicAffairsAsia Gold Standard Awards
goldstandard@publicaffairsasia.com