Allan Golombek

Specialty: Writer.

Fields most served: Business strategy; Trade; Financial markets and financial regulation.

Interview:

Q: How do you describe what you do at WHWG?
Golombek: I help people put forward their point of view.

Q: What is most satisfying about your work for your clients?
Golombek: Getting inside their heads so I can get their thinking on paper, in their voice.

Q: What kinds of clients do you have and what are they looking for from you?
Golombek: Trade associations, publicly traded companies, financial service firms. I think more than anything they want me to turn their thoughts into my words – listen closely, understand their message, put that into interesting language. They are looking for turning complex material into a clear point of view that resonates. They also often want major projects written tight to deadline.

Q: What particular moment have you liked most in working for a client here?
Golombek: It probably would have been writing for pharmaceutical organizations, because pharmaceutical research is an issue I care about. On a more personal level, it might be a speech I was writing for the outgoing chairman of a banking organization. He was a crusty sort, curt, an old-style banker who hadn’t been happy with speechwriters his staff had hired in the past. When we had our second conference call to review the draft I sent him, he only had a couple of minor changes. He said that after reading the draft he had told his wife ‘finally one of these guys actually listened to what I had to say.’

Q: Do you have a personal measure of success with your clients? What is it?
Golombek: Whether they come back with more work, or recommend us to someone else.

Q: What skill or knowledge or experience has helped you most in your work at WHWG?
Golombek: Ability to listen. Willingness to put aside preconceptions to embrace the client’s point of view. Other than that, experience in government, politics and the news business have all been important, because they require an ability to write quickly and under pressure. Most valuable single experience? The first time I covered a baseball game for UPI. The game was tied 9-9 in the bottom of the 8th with 32 hits. After that kind of pressure, everything else starts to seem a little easier.

Bio: Allan Golombek has more than 20 years communications experience as a speechwriter, journalist, and public affairs consultant. His work has encompassed such public policy issues as financial and banking regulation, health care, trade, justice and criminal law reform, and housing. His clients have included Canadian cabinet ministers at both the federal and provincial level, as well as corporate CEOs and business associations.

As a speechwriter, Mr. Golombek has been honored with awards from the National Association of Government Communicators in Washington, D.C., and the National Media and Public Relations Forum in New York. He has conducted several workshops on the basics of speechwriting.

Mr. Golombek has contributed to several publications, including the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Wall Street Journal, Ottawa Citizen, and Books in Canada. He has been a public affairs panelist for several Toronto-area radio and television stations, including CBC Radio's regional affiliate.

From 1985 to 1988, Mr. Golombek was Principal Speechwriter for the Premier of Ontario, a position that involved helping to shape communications strategy for the government of Canada's largest province, as well as managing a writing staff. For six years (from 1979 to 1985) he was a reporter and editor, for United Press and the Toronto Sun.

Mr. Golombek lives in his hometown of Toronto.