MANCHESTER, New Hampshire - NewCircle Communications (www.newcirclecom.com), a strategic communications and consulting firm focusing on corporate social responsibility, announced today that it has added corporate governance to its inventory of consulting services. The corporate governance service includes use of a unique, proprietary database of potential corporate directors with backgrounds in corporate social responsibility, business ethics and socially responsible investing.

"We think we can help companies because we understand the connection between corporate governance in particular, and corporate responsibility more generally," said NewCircle founder and president Joseph F. Keefe. "This is our area of focus. We know the issues, we know the players and we understand the risks and potential liabilities associated with substandard performance in the area of corporate responsibility, including substandard corporate governance."

"We also understand the investment side," continued Keefe, "and the increasing importance of corporate responsibility to individual and institutional investors looking for solid long-term equity investments."

Other public relations firms have recently begun offering corporate governance consulting services but NewCircle says what it's doing is different.

"We don't view this as short-term public relations or crisis management," says Keefe. "We believe that good corporate governance is one component of overall corporate responsibility, and that high standards of corporate responsibility enhance corporate reputation and benefit corporate performance over the long term. We want to help companies see corporate governance in this context."

NewCircle's corporate governance consulting services will include use of a proprietary database it has developed containing information on leaders in the areas of corporate social responsibility, business ethics, socially responsible investing and related fields. NewCircle will help companies searching for independent directors to locate potential candidates with strong backgrounds in these arenas.

NewCircle also plans to help companies integrate corporate social responsibility into board procedures and activities so that "companies can embrace corporate social responsibility, including high standards of corporate governance, at the highest levels of the company."

"To date, most of the pressure on corporate managers to improve corporate governance and social responsibility has come from shareholder groups," says Keefe. "While shareholder activism will continue to be on the rise post-Enron, it's equally important that corporate managers begin to feel pressure from their boards of directors - who, after all, are supposed to represent the shareholders. Corporate boards have to start insisting upon greater corporate responsibility."

In the aftermath of widespread corporate accounting and governance scandals, there has been much recent discussion about the need for corporations to recruit independent directors with backgrounds in finance and accounting - so as to properly exercise their oversight responsibilities over company audits and financial statements. According to NewCircle, however, today's companies not only need independent directors knowledgeable in finance and accounting, but directors "who understand a company's wider obligations to shareholders, employees, communities, the environment and the public."

"Companies need independent directors who are focused on long-term, sustainable growth rather than simply on tomorrow's share price," says Keefe, "And sustainable growth requires strong corporate ethics, honest investor relations and high standards of social and environmental responsibility. Who better to help sensitize companies to these concerns than independent directors with backgrounds and experience in the arena of corporate social responsibility, business ethics or socially responsible investing?"

NewCircle's services also include helping companies manage stakeholder and media relations, as well as other communications-related services.

NewCircle Communications, founded in 2000, is a strategic consulting and communications firm focusing on corporate social responsibility, representing both corporate and non-profit clients. Its services include brand and message development, reputation management, media relations and other communications consulting services. Founder and president Joe Keefe is a former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Citizens Funds, a socially responsible mutual fund firm, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Social Investment Forum, the national trade group representing socially responsible investment professionals. Principal Crescentia True is a former Executive Vice President for Operations at Citizens Funds, where she was responsible for social and environmental research and shareholder activism, and is the Chair of New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility.

NewCircle Communications

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