December 9th, (BRUSSELS, BE) –On December 9th 2010, over one hundred professionals active in the Brussels EU advocacy arena met at the occasion of the second European Public Affairs Action Day, which was hosted by Publishing company Dods and co-sponsored by Kellen Europe.

 Kellen Europe’s Vice President, Maria Teresa Scardigli chaired the panel session on “Designing and implementing a ‘coordinated’ public affairs effort”. The panel consisted of four experts in public affairs, coming from various industries and organizations; Roxanne Feller, Director Economic Affairs at the European food and drinks umbrella association CIAA, Susanne Kuschel, Senior Counselor at chemicals industry organization CEFIC, Robert J. Jeekel, Director Energy & Climate Change Policy at Eurometaux, the non-ferrous metals association and Niels Schreuder, Public Affairs Manager of AGC Glass.

The session focused on how organizations can best coordinate their various efforts in public affairs in order to achieve its advocacy goals.

The panelists gave an insight on how strategies were implemented and shared best practices based on their experiences, from a corporate, association and stakeholder organization’s point of view.

Roxanne Feller said: “In order to ensure coherence, an organization needs to think outside the box in advising its members and should encourage policy makers to do the same. It is all about getting people together to get the least contradictions to the benefit of the competiveness of the sector.” Robert J. Jeekel added: “It is key for organizations to speak with one voice and to keep its position throughout the lobbying process. Continuous involvement of the membership in the preparation of this process is crucial and can be reached through creating effective leadership and trust amongst members.”

Maria Teresa Scardigli commented that “Everyone wants to better understand how associations can become more effective in Brussels. Kellen is very well positioned to support associations in their strategic thinking and in PA activities.” This was underlined at the closing session in which Dani Kolb, Manager of Kellen Europe participated. The debate evolved around the role of companies in associations and the relationship between national groups and European Federations.

About Kellen Europe

Kellen Europe provides association management, strategic advice, communications, government affairs, benchmarking studies, Internet services and other professional advice to associations and corporations worldwide.  Over the last 20 years, Kellen Europe has gathered considerable expertise that enables the company to rapidly anticipate the needs of emerging or existing associations and to provide tailored organizational solutions. For more information, please visit www.kelleneurope.com.

Kellen Europe is the European base of the Kellen Company, which has offices in Atlanta, Beijing, Brussels, Bahrain, New York, Singapore, Tucson and Washington D.C. and Global alliance partners, among others in China, India, Japan and Singapore.

Contact: Nele Devolder
+32 2 761 16 00