• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, May 11, 2012

Since I launched my own business more than 25 years ago, one of the many joys has been not having to keep a resume handy in case I get fired or decide to move to the next corporate job. Even when I did have a resume, it was utterly factual. But clearly that is not the cool thing these days. Let's see where I can make some improvements:

1986 - Present - President of George H. Simpson Communications, a PR firm that focuses on advertising, marketing and Internet trade media relations. Every one of his more than 200 clients saw improvements in their businesses -- nearly all of them to the point they were acquired for zillions of dollars, making their owners wealthy beyond their dreams, some of whom still walk the beaches of the world while their Maybach Landaulet's wait in parking lots for their return. Others rework plans for their 45,000-foot, 25-bedroom homes on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound and/or East Hampton (if on an island near Richard Branson's, don't forget the sprinkler system). Those few who did not succeed, have thrown themselves off bridges and/or tall buildings leaving behind notes absolving Mr. Simpson of any culpability in their failure to get press. Their brains have been donated to medical science to determine if there is a definitive link between the buffeting from VC presentations and such disorders as depression, dementia and Alzheimer's.

1985 - 1986 - Vice President of Corporate Communications with leading global book publisher Simon & Schuster. Mr. Simpson worked a miserable six months for Dick Snyder, one of the most notoriously difficult individuals ever to occupy a CEO chair. Snyder in turn worked for Marty Davis, then Chairman of Gulf & Western and perennially ranked among the top 10 worst bosses in America. It was in their presence that Mr. Simpson, in his infinite wisdom, casually suggested that "Gulf & Western is a stupid name for a company that was fundamentally now in the entertainment and publishing businesses." After which Mr. Simpson was promptly shown the door. Not too much later, the company changed its name to Paramount Communications (just too good a story to embellish)

1972 - 1985 - marketing and corporate communications at Newsweek. The global publicity orchestrated by Mr. Simpson's department is largely credited with buying the venerable newsweekly a few extra years of profitability before being disposed of by The Washington Post in a fire sale to a guy in, what else, the audio electronics equipment business, who then merged it with InterActiveCorp's The Daily Beast. It was during Mr. Simpson's proud tenure that Newsweek was scammed into announcing it had discovered the long-lost "Hitler diaries," and ad money from the tobacco industry kept the magazine from aggressively covering the growing evidence of the health risks of smoking. During Newsweek's 1983 multi-city 50th anniversary dinners, the also notoriously difficult Katharine Graham decided that Mr. Simpson was incapably of picking appropriate flower arrangements, asking Hollywood superagent Swifty Lazar's wife to pick them for the dinner in Los Angeles. What showed up were nightmarish centerpieces, the worst of any FDT Florist's catalogue. For which Mr. Simpson took great glee (after offering up to $10k to any florist who could provide 50 better centerpieces at the last minute). The president of Newsweek later showed Mr. Simpson an internal WP memo laying the blame for the flowers on Mr. Simpson (also just too good a story to embellish).

Freelance Writer - Mr. Simpson wrote "The War Room at Bellevue" for New York magazine, which was later adopted by a dozen college textbooks as a sterling example of narrative style. He has also been published by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and numerous online publications. For Glamour, Mr. Simpson gave a couple of year's of relationship advice to the magazine's multimillion young women under the "Jake: A Man's Opinion" nom de plume. The vast majority of them are now divorced or in abusive relationships.

Education - University of North Carolina, where, when he wasn't chasing sorority girls or taking hallucinogenic drugs, Mr. Simpson took up space on the football team and went to enough journalism classes to keep his parents off his case. One of his coaches called him a "hippie" for writing passages from Marat/Sade on the locker room blackboard. It was the start of a long career annoying those in authority.