Linda Passante, chief executive officer of The Halo Group in New York, won a Stevie® Award for Best Entrepreneur in a Service Business - up to 100 Employees - in the 2007 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Nominated for her vision and focus, and for the management skills that successfully guided The Halo Group through its most recent growth phase, Linda Passante helped found the company with Denise Goodwin Pace in 1994. 

The Halo Group started simply as a private corporation with a telephone, a chair, and a clear concept.  Linda realized that in the rapidly changing world of marketing, businesses needed to marshal new resources to compete. She therefore embarked upon a series of bold moves that laid the foundation for Halo’s growth.

Introduced a New Agency Model
Linda saw an opportunity to uniquely position Halo and create a new source of consultative revenue. As CEO, Linda retooled Halo into a brand development company, designed to help businesses drive profit by focusing all their marketing practices—internal and external—on connecting with their customers. Halo would deliver everything their clients needed to do this, from marketing plans and budgets, websites, advertising, retail design, public relations, and viral marketing to sales presentations and collateral materials.

Entered a More Competitive Marketplace
Despite intensive competition from larger, well-resourced advertising agencies and vertical marketing-related firms, Linda successfully transitioned Halo from a small regional ad agency on Long Island to a brand development company based in the competitive environment of New York City. Halo officially moved to New York and closed its Long Island office in Fall 2005.

Built Human Capital Resource
Linda invested in creating the right group of consultants and communicators for this new company model.  An early adopter of Brand Planning hiring, she built a planning department—unique for an agency of Halo’s size. She also bolstered Halo’s interactive, search-engine marketing, public relations, and other capabilities to ensure that Halo had the expertise to efficiently focus its clients’ resources. Linda has doubled the size of the staff since Halo moved into the New York City.

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By Anthony Balderrama, CareerBuilder.com writer

Sometimes we have lofty work goals: become CEO, earn a million dollars before we're 30, make the cover of Time magazine. And other times we have simpler aims. Perhaps the most universal concern of all workers, regardless of gender or industry, is the desire not to appear foolish.

The prospect of committing a faux pas in front of your peers, boss, or clients is enough to make you blush. A case of the hiccups or giving a presentation with your zipper down will haunt you for the rest of your career.

The odds of making a social misstep increase when you travel abroad. Executives making business trips to other countries often find themselves trying to put their best foot forward but instead end up stepping on the toes of their hosts.

Don't always clean your plate
The dinner table is the perfect venue to commit a well-intentioned gaffe. Nancy Mitchell of The Etiquette Advocate trains clients on business protocols and etiquette. One of her clients recently admitted that he offended a Chinese business associate on his first trip to Beijing. The business associate invited him to dinner on the first night of the visit. His research taught him that in China, he shouldn't discuss business at such an early stage of his trip, so he went to dinner confident about his efforts to keep the conversation on learning more about China and his host's family.

As the evening progressed, the American politely ate every bit of food on his plate, even as the courses continued and he was full. When the evening ended, the host's warmth had disappeared and he gave the visitor a cold goodbye.
The next morning he found out from a co-worker that in China, cleaning your plate means you weren't given enough food. Several helpings of food signal that the host wasn't generous to his or her guest.

Don't get caught off guard
Business travelers can often find themselves in awkward situations through no fault of their own. Asking "How are you?' can get some surprising responses, says Elisabetta Ghisini, author of "Communicating the American Way." Americans will normally respond to that question with something quick and cheerful, such as "Fine!" or "Good. How are you?"

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Richard Branson, the legendary founder and chairman of Virgin Group, became only the second-ever recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Stevie Award this summer, when he was presented the award as part of The 2008 International Business Awards.

The IBAs were presented in Dublin, Ireland on September 8 (see summary of the event below), but Sir Richard was unable to attend. So we asked Tanya Beckett of the BBC, who emceed the IBA ceremony, to present the award and chat with him, and we videotaped their meeting in London earlier this summer.

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Blogs, or web logs, are all the rage these days. Each month in this space we'll point you to several blogs that we think might be of interest to you.

Change This : ChangeThis is creating a new kind of media. A form of media that uses existing tools (like PDFs, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and spread.
TeeBeeDee : An online community for people over forty who know that life is still To Be Determined.
BookSlut : A monthly web magazine and daily blog dedicated to those who love to read. Aconstant supply of news, reviews, commentary, insight, and more than occasional opinions.
The Halo Effect : Blog site of The Halo Group, designated as “a place where CEOs, CMOs, and VPs of Marketing and Advertising come for ideas and answers.”