Peter Roche, President

Peter Roche is the founder and president of IPR, Inc., a financial and corporate public relations firm. Prior to establishing IPR in 1995, Mr. Roche was a managing director and chairman of the media task force at Burson-Marsteller, a leading global communications and public relations firm. He also served there as director of corporate and financial media and supervised a variety of top-tier corporate accounts.

Before joining Burson-Marsteller, Mr. Roche served for eight years with Morgan Stanley Group, Inc., where he was vice president, corporate communications. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. Roche was director of press relations for Kennecott Corporation, the nation’s leading copper producer.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Roche served for six years as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. While at that publication, Mr. Roche served as senior credit markets reporter with responsibility for The Wall Street Journal’s bond market coverage. He had previously been assigned as an oil and energy reporter in the WSJ’s New York Bureau.

Prior to his work with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Roche was an assistant editor of The Money Manager, a weekly business publication. He served before that as a public relations representative for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

While in military service, Mr. Roche was a press relations officer for the Chief of Public Affairs, Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe in Heidelberg, Germany. He held the rank of captain. He is a graduate of the Department of Defense Information School, Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and the Field Artillery and Missile Officers Candidate School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Mr. Roche holds a Master of Arts degree in communications from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lafayette College.

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Edward Dunn, Senior Partner

Edward Dunn is a senior partner at IPR, Inc. Until recently, he was vice president/manager of institutional investment communications at T. Rowe Price, where he managed the development of institutional content for multiple applications. Prior to TRP, he was vice president/manager of public communications for London-based Gartmore Group, a provider of traditional and alternative investments. Mr. Dunn managed branding, positioning, media relations and various marketing responsibilities for two San Francisco Bay Area start-ups: OffRoad Capital-the world’s first internet-based private securities marketplace, and Scudder Weisel Capital-a joint venture between Zurich Scudder Investments and Thomas Weisel Partners designed to deliver alternative investments to affluent individuals and mid-sized institutions.

Prior to those ventures, Mr. Dunn was director of public relations for American Century Investments where he managed West Coast public relations and media relations for the firm’s mutual funds, brokerage operations, and internet activities and partnerships from their San Francisco office. From 1991-1998, Mr. Dunn handled a full range of corporate communications for Nuveen Investments, including the creation of its media and investor relations programs upon its passage to public ownership in 1992.

Prior to Nuveen, Mr. Dunn worked for Cramer-Krasselt, a Chicago-based public relations/advertising agency, where he built up the financial services practice to include accounts such as Dun & Bradstreet, The Nielsen Companies, Citicorp Global Payment Products, Chicago Title & Trust, ABN/Ambro Bank, and LaSalle National Bank.

Mr. Dunn’s background also includes media relations, public relations and investor relations for First Chicago Corporation and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Mr. Dunn holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Illinois/Chicago.

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Christine Cannon, Senior Partner,
Media Relations

Christine Cannon is senior partner of media relations for IPR, Inc. Ms. Cannon’s entire career has been focused on dealing with a broad spectrum of national and international media. As a result, she maintains strong relationships with top-tier general business and national trade reporters and editors, working daily with some of the world’s most highly-regarded electronic, print and internet-based media outlets. Ms. Cannon manages the IPR team of media relations consultants while supervising IPR’s media research function.

Prior to joining IPR at its inception, Ms. Cannon was an account executive in the media relations division at Ludgate Communications, a London-based investor relations and financial communications firm. While at Ludgate, she worked on a wide variety of U.S. and international accounts, including John Nuveen & Co., Credit Suisse and Daimler-Benz.

Ms. Cannon also developed and managed the Ludgate media monitoring and research department. Prior to working at Ludgate Communications, Ms. Cannon was an account executive at Henszy & Albert, Inc., an advertising and public relations firm in New York.

Ms. Cannon holds a Master of Science degree from Dowling College. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business management, specializing in marketing and communications, from the State University of New York at Buffalo...

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Erin F. Burke, Senior Partner

Erin Burke joined IPR, Inc. in 2000 as senior counselor. Ms. Burke had previously served as senior vice president and group manager at Ludgate Communications. Ms. Burke joined Ludgate after spending several years in financial services and marketing with Citibank and Merrill Lynch.

During her eight-year tenure with Ludgate Communications, she was responsible for the development and implementation of the financial communication programs for a wide variety of international clients, including Cadbury Schweppes, Pechiney, Koor Industries, OMV and Reliance Industries. Ms. Burke specializes in creating focused media and investor relations programs based on market perception research, message development and sell-side analyst targeting to meet the particular communications goals of her client companies.

Ms. Burke was a senior account executive at Citibank’s American Depository Receipt (ADR) division before joining Ludgate. At Citibank, she managed the investment community activities for the ADR programs, including cash and stock dividends, reorganizations, rights offerings, stock splits, mergers and acquisitions, and proxy voting.

Prior to her work at Citibank, Ms. Burke was an international account manager in the Foreign Securities division of Merrill Lynch. She was the principal liaison to Merrill Lynch traders, operations staff, custodial banks and foreign clients and was responsible for foreign equity, debt and currency settlements.

Ms. Burke is a graduate of Rutgers University where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and accounting.

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Joanna Robinson, Director of Research

Joanna Robinson is the director of research at IPR, Inc. and is also the co-founder of International Press Review, an international media directory launched in 1991. Before joining IPR, Ms. Robinson was a research assistant in the media relations department at Burson-Marsteller where she was in charge of building and updating the Burson-Marsteller media database. She also assisted account teams and conducted media research for client accounts.

Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller, Ms. Robinson worked at Morgan Stanley in the corporate communications department as a public relations assistant in both the New York and London offices.

Before moving to New York, Ms. Robinson worked and lived in London where she was an executive assistant at Argent, a property development company in the UK.

Ms. Robinson is a graduate of the Oxford Media & Business School, Oxford, UK, and the Royal School, Hindhead, Surrey, UK.

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Andrea Rickert, Research Coordinator

Andrea Rickert joined IPR, Inc. in 2009 as research coordinator. Ms. Rickert is responsible for maintaining the International Press Review media directory and provides support for the IPR, Inc. client accounts.

Ms. Rickert had previously worked at Mizzentop Day School as Development Coordinator, in charge of fundraising events. Prior to Mizzentop, Andrea spent ten years at Estee Lauder, Inc. as assistant manager of creative services where she acted as the liaison between the Copy, Art and Design departments. In that position she also managed the workflow of the copywriters and was the point -person for the marketing departments.

Her experience before joining Estee Lauder was with Interbrand Corporation, a brand-name consultant, as an administrative assistant.

Ms. Rickert holds a Bachelor of Arts in French and art history from Franklin and Marshall College.

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Patricia L. Harden, Managing Partner,
Harden Communications Partners

Patricia Harden founded Harden Communications Partners, LLC, to provide high-quality communications services in a boutique-style format for organizations that seek leadership and heightened visibility in their industries.

In a career that includes senior corporate and agency roles, Ms. Harden has designed and led scores of successful PR campaigns for national firms such as Fidelity Investments and Fireman’s Fund Insurance, as well as for local and regional businesses, start-ups and non-profits. An accomplished media trainer and corporate strategist, Ms. Harden works with management teams to create compelling messaging for new product launches, crisis issues, positioning and annual reports.

Prior to forming Harden Communications Partners, Ms. Harden was general manager of the San Francisco office of Peppercom, where she oversaw PR programs for West Coast clients in healthcare, financial services and professional services. In her corporate career, Ms. Harden was senior vice president of corporate marketing for Offroad Capital and headed communications for American Century. She directed corporate communications at SunAmerica and headed the Western Regional office for Fidelity Investments.

Ms. Harden serves on the board of the San Francisco Public Relations Roundtable and is a member of the Financial Women’s Association of San Francisco, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Arthur Page Society.

A graduate of Southern Methodist University, she holds master’s degrees in English literature and journalism from UCLA. In 2001 she completed the Advanced Management Program at the Haas Business School of the University of California at Berkeley.

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Anthony Payne, Managing Partner,
Peregrine Communications

Anthony Payne is an award-winning corporate and financial communications consultant with more than 20 years’ experience working with clients on strategies for communicating with investors, analysts, employees, and the print, online and broadcast media. His experience includes strategy counsel; communications planning; global, regional, national account management; message development; media relations; new company launches; corporate repositioning; financial calendar communications; mergers and acquisitions consulting; internal/ crisis/ NGO communications; media training; event management; high-level pitches; and financial PR training.

Prior to founding Peregrine, Mr. Payne was managing director, and director, Europe, Middle East and Africa Financial Practice of WPP-owned Hill & Knowlton Financial, a global financial communications firm.

He has also held senior consultancy and board positions with global firm Burson-Marsteller, where he achieved managing director level, and with Shandwick, where he was a board director.

Mr. Payne has an honours degree in Law, was trained as a solicitor, is qualified as a General Registered Representative of the London Stock Exchange, and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

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