What inspired us to become a partner of UNICEF

Mark Hamill

Managing Director

"The co-operation between SpenglerFox and UNICEF started during the summer of 2008. I had just put down the book 'Long Way Round' by Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor which describes the duo’s motorcycle voyage around the world. Along the way they managed to stop off in many UNICEF aid points and it was nothing less than awe-inspiring to read about those UNICEF projects.

My curiosity growing by the day, I arranged to meet Pavla Gomba, the Director of UNICEF in Prague, and she explained their activities in Czech Republic and further afield.
During this meeting it became clear that there was a part that SpenglerFox could play in helping UNICEF.

With all the contacts that we have as an executive search firm we could certainly play a role in increasing UNICEF's brand awareness amongst business leaders in the Czech Republic and across our network.

Given the challenge that we had faced in finding a global partner to help us with our community CSR efforts we all agreed that this was the perfect opportunity for us to begin to realise our shared dream. We could leverage our contacts to help UNICEF get closer to multinational corporations, not just locally but globally.

We immediately organised a UNICEF project team consisting of colleagues from SpenglerFox and the Grafton Employment Group worldwide (UK, Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal, France, UAE, Moscow, Bucharest, Budapest, Istanbul, Athens, Hong Kong) who were tasked with making contact with their local UNICEF team.

In July 2008 we completed our first pilot project in Warsaw. We organised and sponsored a conference on Talent Management, where we invited 40 top HR Managers from a variety of businesses. We also invited UNICEF Poland to come and speak at the event on CSR and their projects, giving them access to our network. Following this we began to help UNICEF by communicating their campaigns to our clientele.

I am currently writing a series of 10 articles for Hospadarsky Noviny, the leading Czech business newspaper which works in association with the Wall Street Journal. In these articles I interview 10 business leaders based in the Czech Republic. The articles focus on CSR among other topics. The interviews have been conducted on behalf of UNICEF and with their blessing.

On the links below you can see the interviews with:

The first of these articles were published between April and June 2009. Following the success of this initiative we will begin to role this out across our global network. I will do another series of articles during the summer, leading up to a Business Breakfast in early September with 40-50 General Managers from Czech business regarding CSR and helping UNICEF raise their profile among business leaders in the Czech Republic.

We are constantly looking for ways to help draw attention to UNICEF and their work, and at our St Patrick's Day celebrations this year in Prague and Budapest we organised donation boxes. We also donate money directly to UNICEF, demonstrated by our donation earlier this year on behalf of the Top 25 Female Business Leaders in the Czech Republic.

We look forward to continuing our co-operation and helping UNICEF achieve its goals in 2009!"

Want to get involved? Email me: mhamill@spenglerfox.com