NEW YORK (October 1, 2007) — The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) announced today that Loula Zaklama, president and managing director, Rada Research & Public Relations in Cairo will receive the Atlas Award for Lifetime International Achievement at the Society’s 2007 International Conference, Oct. 20–23, in Philadelphia.
Loula Zaklama, known as the dean of public relations in her native Egypt, began her career at a time when public relations and women in business were foreign concepts in Egypt and the Arab world. At 19 years old, with two children and still a student at American University in Cairo, Zaklama took over the family’s part-time business when her husband was arrested for defying the socialist government by starting a privately owned advertising agency. Her client references today include the Egyptian government’s General Authority for Investment & Free Zones, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, and Ministry of Housing, along with Procter & Gamble, IBM, Pfizer, Cadbury Egypt, DaimlerChrysler, and myriad local and international private sector enterprises.
Her success, however, has not been defined by the evolutionary economics of North Africa and Egypt so much as it has been built by Zaklama’s dogged determination to learn all she could about her profession, her clients and the publics they served. “Knowledge was my tool,” she said. “I had no other means of putting up a fight.”