Teneo, a global public relations firm based in New York City counts the governments of Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia among its clients. While representing nations accused of grave human rights abuses, Teneo simultaneously maintains that diversity, equity, and inclusion are among its “core values.”
Teneo began its work with Azerbaijan in June to help the country promote its COP29 climate change conference. COP29, an annual environmental summit sponsored by the United Nations, was controversial from the outset due both to Azerbaijan’s extensive extraction of fossil fuels and its poor record on human rights, including an alleged ethnic cleansing that it carried out in a disputed region inhabited primarily by Christian Armenians in 2023. The State Department has said the country has “significant human rights issues.”
The firm’s work for the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, meanwhile, dates back to September 2021 and its work with NEOM Company, a Saudi state-owned corporation aiming to build a futuristic city along the Red Sea, began in July 2017. Teneo was tasked with promoting Saudi Arabia’s ventures to the public and investors, despite the nation’s human rights abuses documented by the State Department.
While working as an agent for these authoritarian regimes, Teneo has nonetheless touted its commitment to human rights in the form of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Among other initiatives, the firm has worked to increase the number of women in corporate leadership positions, established affinity groups for racial and sexual minorities, set internal goals for hiring racial minoritie,s and signed GLAAD’s statement of support for LGBT people.
In 2017, the Azerbaijani government detained dozens of gay men and transgender women and tortured them to extract information regarding the whereabouts of other homosexuals, according to the State Department. Homosexuality in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is outright illegal. In its 2023 Sustainability Report, Teneo highlighted that it received the People’s Choice award for LGBTQ+ advocacy during VERCIDA’s 2023-2024 Inclusive Employee Awards.
Teneo supports a broad array of racial diversity efforts. For one, the firm partners with activist organizations to facilitate the hiring of more “diverse” candidates. Teneo is also a signatory of the “Race at Work Charter,” which calls on businesses to incorporate minority-owned businesses in their supply chains, require managers to promote DEI, track the ethnic identities of employees, and appoint an executive to handle race-related initiatives.
“We believe that the history of injustice and promise of freedom should be acknowledged, recognized and remembered globally,” the company’s sustainability report reads. Teneo makes a point to highlight that the company observes both Juneteenth and Windrush Day, a British holiday celebrating the contribution of migrants.
Though positioning themselves as champions of ethnic diversity, Teneo took on Azerbaijan as a client just months after the oil-rich nation orchestrated what many international observers have characterized as an ethnic cleansing.
Azerbaijan invaded the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was inhabited primarily by Armenian Christians, on Sept. 19, 2023. The offensive led to nearly all 120,000 inhabitants of the territory fleeing westward for fear of death. Before assaulting the disputed area, Azerbaijan imposed a nine-month blockade severely restricting the flow of food and fuel into the region in a move the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said could amount to genocide. Foreign policy experts and American lawmakers have condemned Azerbaijan’s operations, with some going as far as to accuse the country of ethnic cleansing.
The governments of Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan have paid Teneo handsomely for its services. Azerbaijan paid Teneo a monthly retainer fee of $475,000 with additional fees of $1,425,000 and $950,000 May and June, according to Foreign Agent Registration Act disclosures. During the event itself, Azerbaijan increased its retainer payment to Teneo to $750,000.
In exchange for the cash, Teneo agreed to work with Azerbaijan to work on “narrative development” for COP29 and to handle media relations for the event. In practice, Teneo flooded journalists with emails, phone calls, and text messages aiming to shape coverage of the conference in a way favorable to the Azerbaijani government, according to FARA records. Among the major American outlets contacted by Teneo on behalf of Azerbaijan were the New York Times, Bloomberg, Associated Press, and the Washington Post. The public relations firms also engaged with media outlets in the United Kingdom, India, China, Pakistan, Australia, Ireland, and Japan, among other countries.
While its foreign agent interfaced with journalists abroad, Azerbaijan imposed “serious restrictions” on the media and free expression at home, according to the State Department. The Azerbaijani government has engaged in violence against members of the press, thrown dissident journalists in jail, and imposed significant restrictions on internet freedom.
In its work for NEOM Company and the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi-owned ventures, Teneo also advanced the interests of its clients by attempting to influence media coverage. For its Saudi clients, Teneo targeted more business-related publications and programs. Teneo was tasked with presenting the Public Investment Fund as “a sophisticated global investment organization with a solid track record and a targeted investment strategy.” Similarly, the Saudi government tasked Teneo with promoting NEOM to global audiences and wooing investors.
Some investors have been wary of sending funds to Saudi Arabia due to its history of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. Among other offenses, the State Department has found that the Saudi government has murdered its citizens, engaged in torture, subjected people to arbitrary detention, severely restricted freedom of expression, carried out violence against journalists, and allowed the “existence of the worst forms of child labor.”
Teneo received millions for its work on behalf of the Saudi government ventures, according to FARA disclosures.
“We are making progress and, while we are encouraged by our narrowing year-on-year gender pay gap, we understand that the picture is complex and that sustained reductions will take time to achieve,” Teneo’s sustainability report reads. The company’s United Kingdom branch, for instance, engages in targeted recruitment of female candidates and facilitates “conscious inclusion training” to make the workplace more welcoming for women.
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Both Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan rank near the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s indices measuring gender equality and have been criticized by the State Department for failing to uphold equal rights for women. Teneo claims that it is “committed to gender equality.”
Despite representing two major crude oil producers, Teneo also claims that it is on a mission to promote environmental sustainability by playing a “key role in the transition to a lower carbon economy.”
Teneo did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
