Executive Suite: David Chauvin, Great Neck

For the first time in its 24-year history, the marketing and advertising firm Zimmerman/Edelson has added a new partner: 33-year-old David Chauvin.

Before joining the firm in 2007, he spent seven years in the political arena, as spokesman for the Town of Hempstead, executive director for the Nassau Democratic Party, and on political campaigns including Thomas Suozzi's 2006 run for governor. He became a partner this year.

He said politics taught him how to craft messages, a skill he uses in the private sector. In his new role, he handles public relations, crisis management and new-client development.

Instead of working for one entity, I now oversee services to more than 50 clients including schools, corporations, governments, utilities and nonprofits. The diversity of clients has been an exciting change.

Working in government was a tremendous experience. The shotgun effect of issues that come at you on a daily basis prepares you incredibly well for the private sector. There's an inherent sense of urgency in terms of what you have to do.

It all starts with the human side of the story. There needs to some sort of narrative to it so that people can relate to it.

People just expect news to come to them, and they're very content in allowing their universe to get smaller and smaller, and I think that's a problem. I encourage people, especially young PR people, to continue reading papers, multiple papers .?.?. You have to read four papers a day, minimum.

To me, as a consumer, it's all about simplicity. A lot of what we know and best-case practices are actually developed in the political sphere. In '92 Bill Clinton bought into the 24-hour news market. George W. Bush and Karl Rove [used it to speak] to the base. Barack Obama, with micro-targeting through mobile and social media, was finding pockets of voters in places that we didn't know existed.

Crisis communications begins long before anything happens. It begins with valuing proactive outreach to your "publics." When a company or government spends the time building credibility through positive outreach and transparency, they are already in a stronger position when a crisis hits. Then it becomes more of a question of getting out in front of the story instead of reacting to it.

North of 40. My day starts at about 7 a.m. I'm usually already taking calls in the car.

CORPORATE SNAPSHOT