How To Write For The Big Guy: A Guide For Corporate Speechwriters and Their Bosses - Paperback

by Steve Zousmer (Author)

A guide for corporate speechwriters and their bosses by a veteran speechwriter who weaves macro and micro writing advice into illustrative and entertaining anecdotes from his experience with several dozen top CEOs and corporate presidents. The target audience is executives as well as their writers: "It makes no sense to raise the consciousness of speechwriters without simultaneously raising the consciousness of their bosses."

Author Biography

Steve Zousmer started out as a newspaper and television journalist, became a documentary film writer, and then enjoyed a career of 18+ years as a corporate speechwriter. He's written six books including two novels. In addition to several dozen corporate executives, he's written for network TV anchors, a university president, a mayor and police commissioner and Navy admirals. His corporate speechwriting résumé includes CEOs or presidents of American Express, the American Stock Exchange, Amdahl Corporation, Bain and Company, Barnard College, Bell Atlantic, Bell Atlantic Directory Group, Banco Latino (Venezuela), Cisneros Group of Companies (Venezuela), DMR-Trecom, Forbes, IMS Health, Kroll Associates, News Corporation, Pepsi International, Philip Morris Companies, Public Service Gas & Electric (N.J.), Nynex, Shell Oil Company, Starwood Hotels, Wells Rich Greene BDDP, Woodside Travel Trust, and the Walt Disney Company. He has also written corporate videos or video projects (for Microsoft, Xerox, American Express, Kroll Associates, Nynex and Citigroup), op-eds appearing in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, and annual reports (American Express and, for five years, Swiss Army Brands). He has taught writing classes at General Motors, Merck-Medco, American Express, Nynex and New England Telephone as well as the New School and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Between journalism and corporate speechwriting he wrote documentaries for National Geographic, Discovery, Audubon, and the Smithsonian. He served as a U.S. Naval officer in Vietnam, graduated from Stanford University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, worked as a reporter for the Providence Journal-Bulletin and San Francisco Chronicle, and spent many years at ABC News where he was a writer for World News Tonight and 20/20, chief writer for Good Morning America and senior producer of Nightline. He and his wife live in a New York suburb. They have twins: their daughter is a lawyer and their son works for the New York Yankees.