Palo Alto, CA (October 17, 2007)   — Dick Martin, former executive vice president of public relations, employee communications, and brand management for AT&T and noted author of “Rebuilding Brand America” will deliver a keynote address at the 2007 CMO Summit, set for December 12 – 13, 2007 in Sonoma, California. Dubbed the Elite Retreat, the CMO Summit will focus on best practices and peer-led thought leadership specific to the marketing operational model and marketing spend in today’s global economy. Martin’s keynote will lead this conversation onto the geopolitical stage as he discusses how the current state of America’s brand perception can affect business practice – and how marketers can safeguard their brands and prosper, even in uncertain political times.

“Marketers invited to attend the CMO Summit will spend much of their time at the Elite Retreat looking within their own corporate walls, and even deeper into their own departments and areas of purview,” said Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. “Dick Martin’s keynote address will encourage marketers to look beyond North American borders to see how foreign perceptions could be affecting their own brand messaging and success.”

The CMO Council Summit (www.cmosummit.org) is the premier networking and thought leadership event in marketing and the official peer-to-peer networking event for the CMO Council, an organization of more than 3,000 global marketers. Members across both the B-to-B and B-to-C market sectors who control more than $70 billion in combined annual marketing expenditures will be invited to attend this exclusive retreat to network with peers and tap into this global network of insight, access and influence.

Martin spent 32 years with AT&T and, in 2004, began his career as an author when he published his book, Tough Calls – AT&T and Hard Lessons Learned in the Telecom Wars. Heralded as “one of the most honest insider’s account ever committed to paper”, his first effort won favorable reviews in Fortune, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe. His most recent tome, Rebuilding Brand America, is an unflinching and vivid look at anti-Americanism, from the earliest days of its formation in Colonial times to current government and private attempts to mitigate it. In his Summit keynote address, Martin will look at brand recovery efforts and the most important must-have best practices of all global business leaders.

For more information about the CMO Council Summit, please visit www.cmosummit.org . Attendance to the North America Summit is by invitation-only, and while membership in the CMO Council is not required for attendance, member requests will have priority handling for this limited attendance event. To nominate a senior marketer for membership, please visit www.cmocouncil.org/members/nomination.asp . To request an invitation to the CMO Summit, visit www.cmosummit.org/2007/north_america/request_invitation.html .

About the CMO Council

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior marketing and brand decision-makers across a wide-range of global industries. The CMO Council's 3,000 members control more than $70 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures. Companies represented on the CMO Council have combined annual revenue of over $600 billion. Visit the CMO Council web site to find out about the initiatives geared to address executive marketers' challenges at www.cmocouncil.org .