Born in the heart of the Midwest, St. Louis, Mo., in May 1925, Ney dedicated himself to his studies at John Burroughs School to ensure that he would have options for his future. Upon graduation, he was offered scholarships to two schools-one in St. Louis and Amherst College.
Interrupted by War
The Amherst College that Ney attended in the 1940s offered a very different experience than the Amherst College of today. In Ney's class, 75 percent of the all-male student population belonged to a fraternity. Academics were also interrupted by national preparations for World War II. While men at the College today don't worry about an imminent draft, Ney, along with many others in his class, was drafted into service prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thus, at a point where the largest of his worries should have been about completing a night's reading before class, Ney was instead at the heart of the Japanese attack on America. On Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, Ney was stationed in Guam instead of at school. In the hours following the Japanese raid, bomb attacks were also staged against the Wake Islands and Guam, where Ney was serving.
At the war's end, Ney returned to the College to complete his education. Ney's class was unique in that the members of his class were all of different ages, and had attended the College at different points in the preceding years. With the war's end, all of these men who had been drafted in different years ended up in the same class together.
Young & In Command
Starting immediately at a large corporation, in 1951 Ney began working for advertising firm Young & Rubicam as their Account Manager. It was at this time that Ney also started a family, marrying in 1950 and having two daughters and a son. Ney helped revolutionize the world of advertising in 1960 when his firm introduced the first color television commercials. This innovation created a whole new market in the advertising world.
In 1970, Ney became the president of international operations at Young & Rubicam, and he quickly became the CEO of the company soon after. But Ney wasn't completely fulfilled as CEO of the largest independent advertising firm in the country. Around the 1970s and early 1980s, he also began to become actively involved in politics, an aspect of the business world that had always fascinated him. Ney became a member of the Board for International Broadcasting as well as a board member of Radio Free Europe. Through his involvement in all of these endeavors, Ney quickly became a man who held extensive influence over what Americans, and viewers all over the world, saw advertised.
The 1980s proved to be Ney's decade. In 1980, and again in 1981, he was featured on the cover of both Forbes and Business Week, and made their annual lists of the most influential people. The next year, as well, Ney was featured on both covers as ranking number one on their lists. Forbes and Business Week both discontinued these lists for a couple years, but when they were brought back in the late 1980s, Ney was again their number one man.
Ney was also featured in the more news-oriented magazine Time in recognition of his exemplary achievements. In addition, he was also featured in the book "Rags to Riches," written by Alan Levine and Gail Lieberman. In this book, Ney isn't featured as someone with a rags-to-riches story, but rather as the man responsible for facilitating another's rise.
Despite all of Young & Rubicam's and Ney's personal success, what Ney is most proud of is the advertising cases that are taken pro bono. For many years, Young & Rubicam has been behind a series of campaigns aimed at discouraging children and young adults from participating in unhealthy behavior, such as smoking.
The firms and companies that Young & Rubicam represents today influence consumers everywhere. Ney's firm is responsible for the advertising campaigns of companies like Goodyear and Chrysler as well as General Foods and Procter & Gamble.
In the advertising world, Ney is well-known for his rigorous work ethic in handling business. The people who work under Ney are used to working long hours because Ney recognizes that there are "no geniuses who work from nine to five." This work ethic has allowed Ney to be responsible for creating an empire out of the company he took control of in 1970. Within three years of becoming CEO of Young & Rubicam, Ney had raised billings for its clients by over $150 million, as Ney arranged for the acquisition of many larger firms that specialized in different aspects of the advertising world.
Alma Mater Matters
Ney was appointed as a trustee of the College when the question of converting the College to a coeducational institution was raised, and consequently heard many arguments for and against the conversion. One man stood out to him as being particularly persuasive, a skill that is, for obvious reasons, coveted in the marketing and advertising world. Ney sought out this man and brought him to New York City to work for Young & Rubicam. Because this man did not have a good financial standing, Ney not only offered him a job but also took care of procuring living arrangements for him.
In conjunction with debating over whether or not to open the College to women, Ney was also involved in the decision of whether or not to abolish fraternities. As fraternities had been so customary both in Ney's time at the College and at the time of voting, Ney favored keeping fraternities, believing in what fraternities had to offer. Ultimately, Ney was out-voted in this and the practice of fraternities were abolished with the admittance of women to the college.
Civil Rights Activist
Young & Rubicam has also been behind some historical movements. In the 1960s and 1970s, at the heart of the American civil rights movement, Ney was approached by a close friend, Vernon Jordan. Jordan was, at the time, trying to increase awareness for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), which had been established in 1944 to offer scholarships to African-Americans who needed financial help to attend college. Jordan approached Ney to ask for free advertising for UNCF, an offer to which Ney quickly agreed. Young & Rubicam took over promoting UNCF's motto "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," and-in large part due to the national exposure Young & Rubicam offered-UNCF was able to multiply its funds many times over.
Ney also vested a personal interest in the vision of UNCF. In May 1980, Jordan, who had been in charge of UNCF, was shot in the back by a white supremacist, John Paul Franklin. Though Jordan was not fatally injured, the injury was critical enough to keep Jordan from being able to perform the duties obligatory to his position in the fund. In a confidential meeting, Jordan asked Ney to step up and take over his position until Jordan felt he would be able to perform these duties sufficiently again. Without hesitation, Ney agreed and took over.
Ney was especially passionate about the civil rights movement. Along with heading UNCF, he also participated actively in many protests and demonstrations, especially in the Harvard area. Ney was the chairman of the Visiting Committee on Afro-American Studies of Harvard University. Though the committee only met twice, they sparked great controversy by debating on the status of Harvard's Afro-American studies. The history of Harvard's Afro-American studies department had reached a climactic level of discontent at the time of Ney's appointment, and ultimately a series of protests by the students and alumni of Harvard made the committee's duties nearly irrelevant as the school was forced to listen directly to the voices of its present and past students.
Political Mastermind
Not content to wield influence in only the advertising sphere of the world, Ney became strongly involved in American politics. When George Bush ran for the presidency in the 1980s, Ney served as a personal advisor to his advertising campaign. Ney is credited with being the mastermind behind Bush's advertising campaign that emphasized the handling of Willie Horton. Horton was a convicted murderer, sentenced to life without parole, who was released from prison as part of a furlough program. Horton used this furlough weekend to commit armed robbery and rape. The Democratic candidate who was running against Republican candidate Bush was Michael Dukakis, a man who had supported the implementation of the furlough program. It was the exploitation of this incident-through Ney's advertising campaign-that in large part allowed Bush to defeat his Democratic opponent.
Ney and Bush had a personal friendship, which was a factor in President Bush's 1989 decision to name Ney as a candidate to become the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Canada. The post was made official on May 12, 1989, and Ney remained in this position until June 29, 1992.
While his appointment as the Canadian ambassador was perhaps the most prominent of Ney's posts, it was actually only one in a string of appointments by many presidents. In 1975, President Gerald Ford appointed Ney to the Board of Radio Free Europe, and in 1983 President Ronald Reagan appointed Ney to the board that served as a successor to Radio Free Europe, the Board of International Broadcasting. When President Reagan organized a Cost Control Survey in 1982, he appointed Ney as a member of the Executive Committee on the Grace Commission. President George H.W. Bush was responsible for the appointment of Ney as trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M College in College Station, Tex.
Ney not only involved himself in national and international politics, but also in the politics that affected him more closely. When the construction of Hampshire College began in 1970, Ney was named a trustee of the College, a school that his son would later attend. In addition to being a Hampshire College trustee, Ney is also a Life Trustee of Amherst College.
For both advertising and personal endeavors, Ney has been constantly recognized for his achievements. In 2004 at its annual Honors Night, the Advertising Educational Foundation awarded Ney with their Lifetime Achievement Award, an award that presenter David Bell stated was given to an "individual for outstanding achievement both inside and outside the advertising industry." The woman to actually present the award to him that night was Barbara Walters, a close friend of Ney's.
Edward Ney now lives in New York City with his wife and maintains a hectic schedule. He attends the gym every day before going to the office for what frequently turns out to be ten hour days in his position as acting Chairman Emeritus of Young & Rubicam, which remains the nation's largest independent advertising company. He also still serves as a member on the Center for Strategic and International Studies Advisory Board and Council on Foreign Relations, as well as being trustee of the College and of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City.
Ney has garnered deserved accolades for his many impressive accomplishments. Despite these, the admiration and respect that people feel for Ney comes more from knowing him personally and appreciating his character, something that no prize can truly capture.