Steve Rose
Founder and Managing Partner
Steve Rose is an experienced corporate and financial communications strategist with a strong background in media relations, mergers & acquisitions, business-to-business communications, internal communications, litigation support and issues and crisis management. He has held senior positions at leading agencies and a Fortune 500 medical device company and has worked with clients across a broad range of industries, including private equity, hedge funds, turnaround management, financial and professional services, wealth management, healthcare, chemicals, plastics and information technology.
Prior to forming The Rose Group, Steve was an Executive Vice President at Hullin Metz & Co., a corporate and financial communications firm. He provided strategic counsel and media relations support to WL Ross & Co. and was involved in Ross’s landmark acquisitions in the steel, coal, textiles, auto parts and subprime lending industries. He served as a senior member of the M&A communications team for Newmont Mining’s contested acquisition of Australia’s Normandy Mining (vs. South Africa’s AngloGold) and Canada’s Franco-Nevada Mining. Following the deal, he arranged a “CEO Q&A” with Institutional Investor, which later named the three-way merger the “2002 Deal of the Year.” He also was a senior member of the M&A team for Japan’s Kao Corporation's unsuccessful bid (vs. P&G) for Clairol. In addition, he led account teams for Human Genome Sciences, Dalton Investments, NCR Corporation, PharmAthene (bio defense start up), Shire Pharmaceuticals, Conway Del Genio Greis & Co. (turnaround management), Capital Fund Management (France’s largest hedge fund) and The M&A Advisor.
Before joining Hullin Metz, Steve was Senior Director of Media Relations for United States Surgical Corporation, where he served as senior communications counsel to C-suite executives and chief company spokesperson. He advised senior management on corporate positioning, financial communications, mergers & acquisitions and crisis and issues management. He shaped both external and internal communications strategy for three major downsizings and during the company’s takeover by Tyco International.
Earlier in his career, Steve was a Vice President at Hill and Knowlton, Inc., and Bozell Public Relations (now a unit of Weber Shandwick). Clients included Allergan Optical, BF Goodrich, Burlington Industries, Clifford Chance, Dow Chemical, DuPont, GTE, Herman Miller, Kodak, Minolta, Monsanto, Northrop, Procter & Gamble, RJR Nabisco and The Society of the Plastics Industry.
Steve is a member of the Association for Corporate Growth, the National Realty Club, The Princeton Club of New York, Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) and Junto of New York. He is also a past president of the Fairfield County Public Relations Association and former advisory board member of the M&A Advisor.
Steve earned a summa cum laude M.A. in communications from Fordham University and a cum laude B.A. in communications from Iona College. He also earned a certificate in investor relations from the University of Connecticut and is a certified Dale Carnegie public speaking coach. He has been a guest lecturer on strategic communications at New York University, Fordham and Iona.
Lee Laino
Laino Consultants, Ltd.
Lee Laino is president of Lee Laino Consultants, Ltd, an award-winning New York-based public relations consultancy now in partnership with The Rose Group. The firms collaborate on marketing PR, media strategy, financial public relations and crisis communications.
Current and former clients served by Laino include Airbus, Air Canada, The Wall Street Journal, Salomon Smith Barney, Emery Worldwide, Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts, Van Kampen Merritt, Nicholas-Applegate, Strong Funds, American Home Products, Sterling Drug, Mack Trucks, Renault, Harvard Industries and others.
Before forming his own firm, Laino served as general manager of Porter/Novelli Public Relations, New York, for two years, during which time he increased staff and revenues sixfold.
Previously, Laino was executive vice president and a member of the management committee of Carl Byoir & Associates, a worldwide public relations firm (prior to acq. by Hill & Knowlton). He supervised award-winning public relations programs for several Fortune 100 companies and was responsible for the agency’s business development effort throughout its 65-city international network.
On the corporate side, Laino served as director of corporate and financial communications for Liggett Group where he was part of the management team that successfully defended against a hostile takeover. Earlier, he held public relations management positions at American Airlines/Americana Hotels and American Express Company.
He began his career as a journalist with WCBS-TV News in New York.
Laino received a B.A. degree from St. John’s University, New York, and a graduate degree in French Language Studies from the Sorbonne. He has served as director of several public companies and not-for-profit organizations. He is the author of a corporate takeover defense manual that was used in Harvard’s MBA curriculum.
Tom Clohesy
Senior Corporate and Financial Communications Strategist
Tom Clohesy provides a broad range of corporate and financial communications services to U.S. and international clients. He is a veteran in media and public relations, from both the agency and corporate perspectives.
His approach is to link an exhaustive understanding of his clients’ lines of business with a variety of positive media opportunities in both the U.S. and non-U.S. press. The creation of relationships between his clients and the appropriate media, whether print, broadcast or on-line, is the ultimate objective of these programs.
Tom has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions and crisis communications. Transactions include Tanger Factory Outlets’ acquisition of the Charter Oak Partners factory outlet portfolio (along with Blackstone Real Estate Advisors); the Rockefeller Center bankruptcy, BHP’s acquisition of Magma Copper, Johnson Matthey’s acquisition of Advanced Circuits and Cadbury Schweppes’ acquisition of Dr. Pepper. His financial services clients on the agency side have included Compass Advisers, GE Capital, SunTrust Banks, Bankers Trust, Credit Suisse, Commerzbank, RZB Bank, Allied Irish Banks and Flemings.
Tom served as Director of Public Relations at Shearson Lehman Brothers International in London, as well as Vice President of Public Relations in the firm’s Corporate and Public Finance Divisions in New York.
He also served as Director of Communications for Price Waterhouse LLP’s Financial Services Industry Practice. He was responsible for public relations, advertising and thought leadership initiatives for the Practice’s Capital Markets and Treasury, Banking, Insurance Investment Companies and Real Estate areas.
Tom received an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. and Bologna, Italy. He holds a summa cum laude B.A. from Union College. He is fluent in German and Italian, and has a working knowledge of French.
Christopher Bacey
Senior Writer and Content Development Strategist
Chris is a former Associated Press news writer with more than 15 years of health-care corporate communications, digital marketing, executive and internal communications and PR/marketing experience.
As an independent writing and content-development expert, Chris has handled communications assignments for Bristol-Myers Squibb, Covance, Sanofi-Aventis, Siemens Medical Solutions, Ortho-McNeil/Janssen Pharmaceuticals, the Women’s Health and Counseling Center of New Jersey, Health Thy Self Essentials and others.
Most recently, he led internal and Change Management communications for Sanofi-Aventis Commercial Support, writing organizational and reorganization announcements, upgrading and driving traffic to its Intranet site, developing and implementing a communications strategy, writing a monthly newsletter and senior leadership message, and supporting group and sales meetings. Another recent assignment involved PR and internal communications for Covance Inc., a clinical trials firm in Princeton, N.J.
Prior to his work with Sanofi-Aventis and Covance, Chris led change communications for Bristol Meyers-Squibb’s Collaboration Services group that implemented approximately 300 Web sites in the 6,500-person R&D Group over 18 months. He wrote weekly Intranet posts on “Collaboration in Action” (CIA) to help drive adoption of productivity tools.
Chris also has led communications and PR programs for Siemens Medical Solutions USA, increasing media coverage and sales training meeting attendance, and supervised the Ansell Health Care surgical products account and communications at St. Peter’s Hospital for SGW Integrated Marketing.
Earlier, he wrote articles for Janssen Pharmaceuticals company magazine and conducted PR activities for the US Surgical Division of Tyco International. At US Surgical, he completed the intensive medical training program in cutting-edge surgical procedures and operating room/hospital aseptic (sterile) technique.
For the Associated Press, he wrote sports and news, including a stint in the New York City bureau. His first article for AP Sports landed in the Sunday New York Times. Another article, on New York Police Department badges, was displayed in the NYPD museum.
Chris earned a B.A. in Journalism from St. Bonaventure University and an M.A. in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) from the University of Amsterdam School of International Communications and Social Research in the Netherlands.
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