EDISON, NJ - July 10, 2008 - CRO Magazine introduces its first CEO of the Year Awards Nominees 2008 to recognize the achievements of the all-star CEOs in Corporate Responsibility.

The nominees range from Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs & Co., and Jeffrey R. Immelt of GE, among the nine nominees in the Large category, to Dr. Larry Brilliant of Google.org and Stan Litow of the IBM Foundation, among the four nominees in the Corporate Foundation category.

Christopher Cox, Chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were among the eight nominees in the Government/Regulatory category.

See below for the full list of nominees.

"These nominees are the cream of the crop in exerting the leadership skills necessary to take their companies or organizations to the next level in Corporate Responsibility, GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance), CSR, Sustainability or Philanthropy," said CRO Magazine Publisher Jay Whitehead. "In the case of the corporations, these CEOs have excelled in these arenas and used this leverage to drive revenues or profitability."

With the exception of the Mid Market Award, all 2008 CRO CEO of the Year Awards will be named live at the CRO Conference Sept. 10, 2008, at the Union League Club in Chicago. The Mid Market Award was named at the CRO Conference in San Francisco June 24. For more information about the conference, visit www.thecro.com/conferences.

These are the criteria for selection of the CRO Magazine CEO of the Year Awards Nominees 2008, established by the editorial team at CRO Magazine. All nominations for and selection of CRO CEO of the Year 2008 awardees are made solely based upon publicly available information and are solely those of the editorial team at CRO Magazine, a unit of Crossing Media LLC.

1. All Categories: CEO or Organizational Leader must personally have provided documented organizational leadership in the areas of Corporate Responsibility, GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance), CSR, Sustainability or Philanthropy.

2. All Categories: CEO's Corporate Responsibility, GRC, CSR, Sustainability or Philanthropy leadership must have documentable direct relationship to recent significant company growth in revenues, profitability or served population.

3. Large Market: Must be a publicly listed company on a major national or international stock exchange ranked either on the CRO Magazine 2008 100 Best Corporate Citizens or on the 2008 SUPR Seal list with a current public CSR, Corporate Responsibility or Sustainability report published in print or listed online by Corporate Register.

4. Mid-Market: Must be a publicly listed company on a major national stock exchange with a current public CSR, Corporate Responsibility or Sustainability report published in print or listed online by Corporate Register.

5. Small Market: Must be a publicly listed company on a major national or international stock exchange.

6. Non-Profit/NGO: Must be listed on GuideStar.org.

7. Government: Organizational Leader of an official International, Federal, State or Local governmental entity. Named official's organization must be free of official notifications of investigations into governance, procurement, spending or environmental practices for past 24 months.

8. Corporate Foundation: CEO of the foundation's company must be a member of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy.

9. Social Entrepreneur: Fits one of the three social entrepreneurship venture type definitions established by the book "The Power of Unreasonable People" by John Elkington, Pamela Hartigan and Klaus Schwab: type 1 (leveraged non-profit), type 2 (hybrid non-profit) or type 3 (social business).

• Lloyd Blankfein: CEO, Goldman Sachs & Co.

• Alexander M. Cutler, CEO, Eaton Corp.

• Jeffery R. Immelt, CEO, GE

• Robert W. Lane, Chairman & CEO, Deere & Co.

• Andrew Liveris, CEO, Dow Chemical

• Paul S. Otellini, President & CEO, Intel

• Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman & CEO, IBM

• Antonio Perez, CEO, Kodak

• David Steiner, CEO, Waste Management
  

• *Marc Benioff, Chairman & CEO, Salesforce.com

• Lawrence J. Blanford, CEO, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

• Daniel T. Hendrix, President & CEO, Interface Inc.

• David Lissy, CEO, Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc.

• Tom Werner, CEO, SunPower

Small Market (

• Mathew Boyle, CEO, Tech/Ops Sevcon

The CRO

The CRO

Launched August 1, 2006 by business media veterans Jay Whitehead, CEO and Michael Connor, Editor and Publisher, The CRO is the leading corporate membership media platform in corporate responsibility. The CRO's media products include CRO Magazine, TheCRO.com, CRO Conference and webinars. The CRO covers governance, compliance, ethics, corporate social responsibility, investor relations, citizenship, socially responsible investing, sustainability, philanthropy and related topics. Members include 100+ corporations including IBM, Pepsi, Citigroup, Avon, Mattel, Washington Mutual, Stanford, Harvard, UCLA, Columbia, OCEG, LRN, OPI, and others. Headquartered in New York City and Roseland, NJ. More information at www.The CRO.com.

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