MIAMI—Lord Chadlington, chief executive of Huntsworth—parent company to public relations firms Grayling, Citigate, The Red Consultancy and Huntsworth Health—will deliver the first Huntsworth Lecture at the Global SABRE Awards dinner, to be held as part of our Global Public Relations Summit in Miami on October 30.

The Huntsworth Lecture will become an annual event, and each year an industry leader will be invited to deliver a provocative and challenging talk that focuses on a critical challenge facing the public relations industry. In the inaugural lecture, Chadlington will focus on “The Ethics of Influence.”

“The Levenson enquiry in the UK is reviewing the role of the press in the light of the phone hacking scandals,” says Chadlington. “The Prime Minister, David Cameron, is asking questions about the future of lobbying. Is it time we had a set of moral and ethical rules that govern public relations?”

Chadlington, who has spent close to 50 years in the PR business, will examine some key moral questions: Is it ever right to lie? Is any client—whatever its moral issues—entitled to PR representation? Should PR people with a client interest be anonymous on social media? What are the rules of the new world of communications?”

Lord Chadlington has spent his entire working life in communications, as a journalist after graduating from Cambridge University and later in public relations both in-house and consultancy.

He founded Shandwick in 1974 and the company was publicly listed in 1984. He established Shandwick as the largest PR consultancy in the UK, holding that position for the next 17 years. He built the firm overseas and it was sold to The Interpublic Group of Companies in 1998, forming the group that became the largest PR consultancy in the world.

Lord Chadlington is a former director of Halifax plc and has written and lectured extensively on communications, politics and public relations. He was created a life peer in 1996.

The Huntsworth Lecture will be a part of the Global SABRE Awards dinner—honoring our global agencies of the year and the 50 Best Public Relations Programs of 2011—on October 30. The dinner will be the centerpiece of the Global Public Relations Summit, which takes place at the St Regis Bal Harbor from October 29-31.