About Roger Weatherburn Baker Roger Weatherburn Baker (left, narrator) pictured with Marina Berkovitch (screen writer) and Alexander Goldstein (cinematographer) upon receiving the Prix Émile Hermès 2014 Gold Award, which they won for their work on a 30-minute documentary entitled Naples Redefined. The Gold Prix Émil Hermès is a major international award given to those who "show expert skills and creativity in the context of mankind's continuing quest for a better quality of life". Born and educated in Britain, Roger began his career as a reporter with the Financial Times in London before beginning a 30-year corporate communications career in London, Paris and New York. He joined the communications function of IBM at their UK Headquarters in London in 1968. In 1974, he was chosen to coordinate the visit to IBM of HM Queen Elizabeth II, working for six months in liaison with Buckingham Palace. Following that event, he was sent on international assignment to IBM’s European Headquarters in Paris responsible for maintaining the quality of the corporation's pan-European internal communications. He became the first European to be named an Accredited Member of the US-based International Association of Business Communicators. Promoted to IBM’s International Headquarters in New York, Roger traveled extensively through Europe and Asia. During this early part of his IBM career, he managed internal communications, management communications, recognition events and film and television production. He launched and edited a total of 11 newspapers and magazines in Europe and the US, managed multi-million dollar marketing conferences and numerous television productions. During this time, he was profiled twice in PR Magazine, the national magazine for PR professionals, and won national bronze, silver or gold awards for his various print productions. While managing IBM’s network-standard TV studios, he co-directed Here I Am an IBM-sponsored documentary on the Special Olympics that won the White House Award for Disability Communications and the Gold Medal at the New York International Film Festival in 1985. Promoted to the company’s corporate advertising function at World Headquarters in Armonk, New York Roger ended his IBM career having responsibility for the corporation’s brand image and winning top national honors for its corporate print and radio advertising campaigns. After 20 years with IBM, Roger joined the corporate staff of the multinational conglomerate Fortune Brands, which managed more than 100 subsidiaries and 11 of the world’s best-known brand names in golf, office products, distilled spirits and tobacco. As Corporate Director of Communications he was speechwriter to the company’s Chairman and managed corporate internal and external communications for a decade. As a member of their Corporate Crisis Management Committee, Roger gave communications advice and counsel to the CEOs of the company’s largest subsidiaries, and acted as international spokesperson for those with operations in tobacco and distilled spirits. During this time, he continued to win national recognition including a 1992 Gold Quill award from the International Association of Business Communicators. Throughout his corporate career in the US, Roger was active in several professional and community organizations. He served as Chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (now the Alliance for Audited Media), an advertising watchdog organization that has more than 5,000 advertising agency, publisher and advertiser members in the US and Canada. He served also on the boards of the Stamford Orchestra, the Fairfield Orchestra and the Silvermine School of Art, all in Connecticut. Roger retired from the corporate world in 1998, moved to Naples and opened The Weatherburn Gallery, which during the next ten years became the largest international fine art gallery in Southwest Florida, rated by Gulfshore Connoisseur’s Guide as one of the foremost art galleries in the state. During his decade of gallery ownership, Roger was Founding President of the Naples Fine Art Dealers Association and a member of the Board of the United Arts Council of Collier County. A lifelong writer, he is a member of the Naples Press Club, author of the novel Noble Rot published in 2004, and of numerous features for regional and national magazines. In 2013, he was the narrator of Redefining Paradise, a 30-minute documentary promoting the city of Naples, that won a 2014 Telly Award and a 2014 Gold Prix Émil Hermès. He continues to serve on the boards of several non-profit organizations, providing public relations advice and counsel. |
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