Charles O. Holliday Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of DuPont received the 2003 International Leadership Award from the U.S. Council for International Business during a gala event held last fall at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
     Each year since 1980, USCIB has honored a senior business executive for significant policy leadership in improving the global competitive framework for American business. Holliday was recognized for leading the business community's efforts to promote world trade and sustainable development.
     Dean R. O'Hare, chairman of the Manhattan-based USCIB, said Holliday is a business statesman who has worked to promote not just sustainability, but international trade as well.
     "Chad Holliday is DuPont's first chief executive with extensive overseas experience, and it shows," said O'Hare. "DuPont's sustainable- growth approach is a mission that has driven the company's scientific research, technological development and manufacturing operations around the world, with increasingly successful results."
     Holliday, 55, spearheaded the development of DuPont's sustainable- growth strategy, which is designed to increase shareholder and societal value while decreasing the company's environmental footprint.
     "With 6 billion people in the world and counting, the idea of economic growth is not negotiable," Holliday said. "The choice is whether we grow in a sustainable or an unsustainable manner."
     Founded in 1802, DuPont has its corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Del. Operating in more than 70 countries, the company - which reported $27 billion in sales in 2003 - offers a wide range of products and services to markets including agriculture, nutrition, electronics, communications, safety and protection, home and construction, transportation, and apparel.
     DuPont's sustainable-growth mission evolved largely in response to criticism by Greenpeace and other environmental groups. "While a company need not embrace its most vocal critics to improve performance in key areas," said Holliday, "it does help to look at things from their point of view and take action accordingly.We have tried hard to listen to our critics, no matter how vocal, as part of a growing dialogue with stakeholders."
     Holliday also is a strong advocate of business support for the United Nations Global Compact, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's initiative to secure private- sector support in order to advance international human rights, environmental protection and related goals. DuPont was one of the first American adherents to the compact following its 1999 launch.
     Annan, who also spoke at the USCIB event honoring Holliday, said the Global Compact is an ideal platform to promote corporate citizenship. He applauded both Holliday's personal commitment and DuPont's corporate support for the initiative.
     The secretary general also noted that the U.N. is at "a fork in the road, with one path leading toward true revitalization and effectiveness, the other toward disappointment and despair."
     Annan urged the business community to participate as the U.N. undertakes to reinvigorate its efforts to promote peace and stability around the world. "It would be unthinkable for the private sector not to be closely involved, both in policy-making discussions here at headquarters, and in projects on the ground," he said.
     The USCIB promotes an open system of global commerce in which business can flourish and contribute to economic growth, human welfare and protection of the environment. Its membership includes some 300 leading U.S. companies, professional services firms and associations whose combined annual revenues exceed $3 trillion.

More information is available online at http://www.uscib.org