Chicago PR strategist Laurie Glenn receives Nationwide Order of Advantage from France

Months in the past, Laurie Glenn, founder, president and CEO of Chicago-based worldwide political and public affairs consulting agency Thinkinc., was her LinkedIn account on a Sunday, when somebody slid into her direct messages asking questions like: “Are you this Laurie Glenn? Had been you born July fifth?”

“I used to be like, ‘What is that this: identification theft?’” Glenn recalled, laughing.

The queries had been from a consultant from Crédit Agricole financial institution in New York Metropolis ensuring the proper Glenn was contacted about being honored with France’s Nationwide Order of Advantage, an award that acknowledges people for distinguished service and/or connection rendered to the French Republic for at the least 10 years. The consideration is much like the Legion of Honor, given to folks in all fields of exercise whose service to France is at the least 20 years lengthy.

Awarded by the president of the French Republic, the Order of Advantage was established by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963 for “distinguished benefit” in service to France and the causes it helps. It’s uncommon for a noncitizen of France to obtain this award.

Glenn is now on that listing, becoming a member of honorees corresponding to Quincy Jones, Toni Morrison, Invoice Gates, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. She obtained her insignia of benefit — a six-armed Maltese asterisk enameled blue, suspended from a wreath of intertwined oak leaves — on June 2 at a New York Metropolis reception with diplomats, civic leaders and French nationals.

Fabrice Rozié, former cultural attache in New York and Chicago, nominated Glenn for the distinction in 2019. In keeping with Patrick Pagni, president of the American Society of the French Order of Advantage, the pandemic prevented ceremonies from being performed till lately.

“She’s one of many only a few to obtain this,” Pagni mentioned. “These are rewarded to people who have achieved one thing vital of their discipline and who’ve been considerably instrumental in creating a big stage of cooperation between France and the US.”

The nomination stemmed from Glenn’s work with Rozié and the native French Consulate in broadening cultural ties between France and the U.S. Glenn’s work with the U.S. Embassy in Paris in assist of the German Marshall Fund with leaders of inclusion on management growth in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 additionally supported her nomination. Glenn taught workshops in 2017 and 2018 with the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle on utilizing analysis as a device for constructing energy and affect on social coverage points.

Different tasks Glenn labored with the French Consulate in Chicago and U.S. Embassy In Paris on embrace:

• “Metropolis/Cite: A trans-Atlantic Trade,” a 2015 occasion the place main students, policymakers, researchers, group organizers, activists and artists from either side of the Atlantic had been in Chicago to discover inequality, race and the state of city democracy in the US and France. This program remains to be in impact.
• In 2009 and 2010, Glenn’s agency was retained by the U.S. Embassy in Paris to convey delegations to Chicago in response to Barack Obama being elected president. Thinkinc. organized a 10-day delegation of French Muslim elected officers from throughout the political spectrum to know how he acquired elected and translate his victory into classes realized for elected officers of coloration in France. The second delegation was dropped at the town to coach native leaders in group organizing as an empowerment device for native leaders.
• Glenn’s creative arm, Th!nkArt, a world artwork and coverage discussion board that options native, European and South American artists, organized a 2010 joint exhibition on the Richard J. Daley Middle that includes the images of 10 youths from Altgeld Gardens in Chicago and 10 youths visiting from La Courneuve in Paris. Th!nkArt’s mission is to maneuver artwork from the canvas to a dialog between human beings about artwork, philosophy, politics and the world at giant. In 2009, Th!nkArt labored in collaboration with French movie director Yamina Benguigui as a part of a world human rights summit in Paris.

Pagni mentioned fewer than 140 People have obtained the distinction during the last 40 years, and that Glenn’s receiving the order is an achievement that’s effectively deserved.

“It was actually an honor a lot larger than I spotted,” mentioned Glenn, who has greater than 40 years of expertise working inside the social justice and public coverage realm and with marginalized communities. “The whole lot I realized from all of the group organizers, all of the teams I labored with in the US, it was a fruits of my work, and it made me a greater particular person, a greater human being. I’m so grateful to be acknowledged since you’re by no means a hero in your individual hometown.”

Glenn is already eager about what comes subsequent. She mentioned she desires to proceed to be engaged with folks’s desires in hopes that she sees the following technology of people that come to energy. With Thinkinc and Th!nkArt, she’s already created a brand new endeavor referred to as ThinkHeart. She hasn’t discovered but what path that effort will take.

“It’s simply so clear to me that it’s all about how we deal with each other, that we come from a spot of affection,” Glenn mentioned. “And that actual institutional change, you must have interaction the hearts and minds of individuals to make actual systemic change.”

For Glenn, being awarded the Nationwide Order of Advantage is proof to maintain going. When most individuals are considering retirement, Glenn says her work is one thing she is going to proceed to do till she dies as a result of “it’s about humanity and constructing a progressive voice that enables inclusion.”

“My faith is social justice,” Glenn mentioned. “I believe that there’s nothing extra vital than folks’s capacity to have free will and to make selections about their life. I work with highly effective community-based organizations in Chicago and in France … to construct democracy with folks on the bottom, to help them, to present them the instruments to amplify their voice and to be strategic in understanding leverage and construct energy. My work is at all times about helping a switch of energy from individuals who have an excessive amount of of it to individuals who want extra of it.”

[email protected]