• Business Week, Thursday, April 10, 2008 10:32 AM

Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn, who was forced to resign from the Clinton campaign over divergent views on a free-trade pact with Colombia, is in full damage-control mode and is shoring up relations with clients and colleagues. The affair has been embarrassing for Burson, which is supposed to get good headlines for its clients, not bad ones for itself.

Penn plans to visit regional offices in the coming days and confer with his executives. "I'll be talking one-on-one," Penn says, "and making sure that this is resolved, behind us, and the company moves on." Penn began working with Burson-Marsteller in 2001, when its parent, WPP, bought his Penn, Schoen & Berland polling firm. Penn's outfit had worked for the Clintons since 1995.

Penn says he will look for lessons but is confident Burson will suffer no long-lasting damage. "I have had a 30-year record of dealing with some of the big elections and best-known PR crises--from Bill Gates and Microsoft to Tony Blair and both the Clintons," he says.

Read the whole story at Business Week »