Hillary Clinton’s Speeches Often Well Received Despite the Price

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Hillary Rodham Clinton at a fundraiser dinner for the UNLV Foundation, spoke to Brian Greenspun, CEO of  the Las Vegas Sun, last October. Credit Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Critics of Hillary Rodham Clinton have been deriding the steep fees that she commands on the corporate speaking circuit, and even though the former secretary of state speaks publicly for free these days, the big companies that paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to hear her talk say she was worth the money.

Perhaps reluctant to admit a bad investment or offend a presidential candidate, companies queried about Mrs. Clinton’s appeal said her global perspective and knowledge of the world are practically priceless.

“Clients gained valuable insight from her global leadership and broad perspective,” said Karen Arena, a spokeswoman for Xerox, where Mrs. Clinton spoke to 1,000 clients for $225,000 at an event in 2014.

Ken Inchausti, a spokesman for the Novo Nordisk, said that Mrs. Clinton’s talk at its Latin America Leadership Forum last year was “very well received.” The Danish health care company said that it paid her $125,000 to share her “insights on economic and political affairs, including health policy.”

Corning, the New York-based manufacturing company that has been a big donor to Mrs. Clinton over the years, paid her $225,500 to speak at its semiannual leadership meeting last July. Her expertise on emerging markets in Asia, where the glass and ceramics company is expanding, was a big part of her appeal.

“We were fortunate to have Secretary Clinton share her global perspective with us,” said Dan Collins, a Corning spokesman.

Corning and Mrs. Clinton go way back. Its political action committee donated $10,000 to her Senate campaign in 2003 and the following year Mrs. Clinton pushed the Chinese government to relax tariffs on its fiber optics products.

Asked this week if her paid speeches represented a conflict of interest now that she is running for president, Mrs. Clinton said “no.”

She and her husband have not always been welcomed at such speaking engagements both for reasons of political price and political persuasion.

When she spoke at the University of Nevada Las Vegas last year, some students protested her $225,000 honorarium as inappropriate at a time of soaring tuition costs.

Former President Bill Clinton faced a backlash of his own in 2001 when he spoke at a Morgan Stanley conference. The bank’s chief executive at the time apologized to customers who had threatened to pull their savings from the bank because of the displeasure at his appearance.

But generally the appearances have been welcomed.

A spokesman for General Electric, where Mrs. Clinton spoke at an event in Boca Raton, Fla., last year, said that even employees who disagree with someone’s politics they tend to like getting perspective from such a big name.

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