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FIRST Award for Responsible Capitalism 2003

10th December 2003

At a special ceremony at Marlborough House attended by 250 prominent business leaders, parliamentarians, and Ambassadors, the Archbishop of Canterbury presented the FIRST Award for Responsible Capitalism 2003 to Dr. Daniel Vasella, Chairman and CEO of Novartis AG, the leading pharmaceutical company.

Dr. Vasella becomes the fourth head of an international corporation to receive the award. The previous winners were Lord Browne of Madingley, Group Chief Executive of BP (2000), Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Carlson Companies (2001) and Sir Robert Wilson KCMG, Executive Chairman of Rio Tinto (2002).

When they make the Award, the judges are looking for a business leader who has demonstrated social responsibility as an integral part of commercial success. Among the qualities which have commended recipients to the judges have been their concern for the environment and for the local communities in which their companies are active.

The Judging panel is chaired by the leading economist Lord

Dahrendorf KBE and includes Chief Emeka Anyaoku GVCO TC CON,

Lord Browne of Madingley,Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Rt Hon Lord

Howe of Aberavon CH QC, Lord Plant of Highfield, Hon Raymond

Seitz, Sir Robert Wilson KCMG and Sir Patrick Cormack FSA MP,

President of FIRST.

In making the Award to Dr. Vasella, Lord Dahrendorf said ‘Dr Vasella epitomises what this Award is about. It is given to successful business leaders who in the running of their business apply principles of moral and social responsibility’.

The Archbishop of Canterbury stressed the importance of the moral dimension of business ‘welfare and profit are, in the longest of long runs, indivisible…… It is impossible to imagine the future anywhere in the world without the role of business enterprise; so it is all the more essential to have benchmarks of excellence not only in financial and procedural performance but in responsibility to the human good. The more this becomes part of the bloodstream of our thinking and practice, the better. FIRST Magazine has a distinctive and vital importance in warning us against any notion that business practice can in the long run justify itself without the context of moral vision, and I am deeply grateful for it’s contribution to our thinking and planning in this area’.

About the Award
FIRST initiated the FIRST Award for Responsible Capitalism in 2000 to honour business leaders who have excelled in both commercial success and social responsibility. Sir Patrick Cormack, President of FIRST said ‘We at FIRST believe that mere commercial success can be assessed in terms of standard criteria,but that social responsibility involves a greater sense of the needs of the wider community as well as shareholders, a special interest in the well-being of groups in need, care for the areas in which the business operates, environmental initiatives, and support for the arts and culture’.

About FIRST Magazine
The recipient of a PPA Award for publishing excellence, FIRST Magazine was established in 1984 to enhance communication between leaders in industry, finance and government at the strategic level. FIRST has an international subscription base of industrial, financial, corporate and government leaders, and contributors have included the Prime Minister Tony Blair and his two predecessors, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, President Jiang Zemin of China, President Jacques Chirac of France, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson, OPEC Secretary-General Ali Rodriquez Araque and leading business figures, including Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard, Bill Gates of Microsoft, John Chambers of Cisco Systems and Lord Browne of Madingley and Sir Robert Wilson, both previous winners of the Award.

For more information please contact:

Rupert Goodman, Chairman of FIRST
Tel: 0207 389 9640
Mob: 07899 900 156
www.firstmagazine.com

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