In this PR photo for BlueFreeway, a digital marketing company, Bill Emden looks like an ordinary Joe, apparently with digital marketing savvy to head up the company’s Southeast Asian division. Perhaps since HR doesn’t appear to have googled him, they expect Southeast Asia to offer the same discretion.
Or maybe the version of Google in Thailand doesn’t bring back Florida’s sex offender registry as the number one result. One assumes also it’s easier to move around Bangkok without the kind of stigma Florida neighborhoods would attach to Emden’s leg.
According to the sex offender registry information, Emden has served his time for non-injurious sexual battery (sexual relations involving a person over 12, but presumably younger than 16), and has been released without supervision.
Other results for his name bring up little. A recent blog post by Eight Black Managing Director Simon Chen mentions him among a litany of other names involved with a company Chen paints as one that is more hype than reality. Chen, after tipping off readers to Emden’s checkered history, also notes Emden very recently is no longer with the company.
It’s hard to say if Emden’s history and his subsequent unemployment are related – other Bangkok executives were also recently dismissed. But just count this as a lesson in HR and PR. First tip: google the name and run a background check. If the prospective executive has a rap sheet dating back to his college days for minor offenses – mooning a cop, public intoxications – those may be forgivable. If he pops up at the top of Google as a sex offender, it’s probably best to avoid a potential PR problem.
Just to put it lightly.
