As a public relations professional, most crisis communications situations aren't as bad as having your client's employees involved in an alleged multiple homicide while on the job - but that's the situation Blackwater was in a year ago.
Jian Lynn Yang, a management reporter for Fortune, checks in with the former Blackwater - now known at Xe - to see how the rebranding is going today.
But has Blackwater really changed? Controversial founder Erik Prince, chairman and sole owner of the company, insists he has turned over all the company's operations to [New CEO Joseph] Yorio, a former Green Beret and shipping executive. Yet the company's problems -- including its reputation for arrogance and cutting corners in the field -- won't go away overnight.
Yang notes that the company has tried to pull back to its roots of providing private training for security forces, rather than sending employees into the war zones - but that it is bidding for an Afghanistan contract that would be similar to the Iraq job that got them in trouble in the past.
Yorio acknowledges the challenges he faces in running a tarnished business, but he says the changes at Xe aren't just cosmetic: a new compliance officer who used to work at the State Department now vets all Xe projects to make sure employees follow government rules and protocols.
A lot of Blackwater's problems were the result of providing high-risk services in a controversial war that was a major debate point in the last Presidential election, which is why ditching their old branding and starting over was worthwhile. It is somewhat amazing to observe that the same crisis PR tactics you could use to rebrand a company after an industrial accident or customer service problem can be applied successfully to getting past alleged homicides as well.
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