Leilani Abels
Founder & MD
ThrivePR & Communications
Leilani is founder and MD of Thrive. She's been working for herself since the age of 22. At 25, she started Thrive building it to be one of the largest and most reputable independent B2C & B2B PR agencies in the country. Thrive now has nearly fifty staff and offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland who represent a stellar client portfolio of Australia's most dynamic PR clients including Optus, Coles, ANZ, Twitter and Cisco.
If you want to know someone, Leilani's your connector. Working on the ground across multiple cities, ensures she opens doors to opinion leaders, key media & influencers.
Leilani has diverse industry experience across politics, business, sport/entertainment, tech, retail, NGOs, design/interiors & FMCG. She's worked for the Australian Republican Movement & raised more than $6m for The Alannah & Madeline Foundation through an event she started, Starry Starry Night, which became AU's most celebrated charity gala.
With a background in sports marketing and management, she has also delivered successful PR programs with high profile events; Louis Vuitton Cup (NZ), AU F1GP, Australian Open (tennis), AU Fashion Week, Australian Masters (golf), World Swimming Championships & major food festivals.
Leilani has represented global & local brands such as LVMH, Dior, Hisense, Nintendo & Nike along with CSIRO, The Salvos, City of Melbourne, AGL, Kraft, Reece, VicHealth & Mattel.
Leilani is an advocate for working parents, women in business, girls in tech and innovative work places.
Elly Baxter
Publicity and Public Affairs Manager
Belvoir
Elly Baxter has ten years experience in communications for the entertainment industry. Her last position was as the Publicity and Public Affairs Manager at Belvoir where she managed media and government relations for the Surry Hills-based theatre company as well as the reputations of its artists and cultural leaders.
Elly is also a certified coach who specialises in supporting people and companies to improve their satisfaction, productivity and joy by unleashing the transformational power of creativity.
She holds a Bachelor of Theatre Arts from the University of Southern Queensland and a Masters degree in Arts and Entertainment Management from Deakin University.
Caz Bevan
Owner, Anhelare
Director of Marketing, Boostability.com
Caz is the owner and founder of her new project, Anhelare, and the managing Director of Marketing for Boostability.com in the United States. Throughout her experience, Caz has worked with immersive marketing strategies for brand such as Sony Music Entertainment, World Superbike Championship, and SpeedTV.
Gustaf Brusewitz
Head of Communications & Public Affairs ANZ
Google
Gustaf Brusewitz joined Google Australia as Head of Communications and Public Affairs in August 2016. He has been with Google since 2012 and was previously Head of Communications for Google in the Nordics, based out of Stockholm. He has worked for Sony Mobile Communications in London as head of external communications, and before that for the Nordic public broadcasting companies in Brussels. He holds a Master’s degree in European Affairs from College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.
Nathan Burman
Head of PR & Communications
Twitter
Nathan is the Head of PR & Communications at Twitter. He is a senior professional with more than 10 years experience in public relations, communications and marketing, with a particular focus on the corporate, consumer and government space. He has worked for some of Australia's biggest brands across a number of industries including financial services, professional services, all levels of government, fast-moving consumer goods, consumer health, consumer technology, travel and tourism, beverage, pharmaceuticals and automotive.
He has also won multiple international and local industry awards, including the 2013 International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill for Excellence in Research and Innovation and the 2011 IABC Gold Quill for Media Relations, as well as numerous Public Relations Institute of Australia Golden Target Awards.
Esther Cvejic
Head of Content Strategy
World of Style
Esther Cvejic is an award-winning digital video marketing specialist, producer, director, vlogger, writer and media coach.
Expertise in storytelling and news reporting with 20 years international experience in broadcasting, publishing, retail, public relations and corporate communications.
Esther has created and produced over 5,000 stories for TV, the fashion, lifestyle and entertainment industry, government, banking, finance and telecommunications sector.
Francis Coady
General Manager
ANZ Havas Sports & Entertainment
Francis Coady's first major introduction to public relations was through his first role after University working for the highly respected agency PR Works, led by twin sisters Simone and Michelle Larmer. During this time he worked on major accounts including Sony, Ericsson, lastminute.com and Orbis. From here he went on to set up his own 360 Management Consulting company, The Coady Group, specialising in Talent, Brand and Broadcast partnerships, Events and Activations.
Operating for ten plus years clients included The Bondi Short Film Festival, artists Thirsty Merc and Hi-5 and corp clients such as Telstra, Apple and Macquarie Bank. CEO of HAVAS Media Mike Wilson asked Coady to join the HAVAS network in early 2016 to set up and run HAVAS Sports & Entertainment. The aim has been to establish meaningful partnerships, for new and existing clients across the HAVAS network, in Music, Film, TV, Sport and live events that intern generate powerful marcoms campaigns that resonate with customer passion points. Clients include Bupa, LG and Gillette.
Jackie Crossman
Principal
Red Agency
Jackie Crossman is a distinguished member of the Australasian PR community by any measure – longevity, client acquisition and impact, industry service, peer recognition or awards success.
A Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) and regular judge of PRIA’s Golden Target Awards and Mumbrella’s CommsCon Awards, Crossman is a corporate and marketing communications specialist with extensive experience and expertise in issues and crisis management, social media activation, event and sponsorship solutions and media strategy, relations and interview skills training.
Her early career was in radio and after a grounding in PR with global firm Burson-Marsteller, Crossman founded her own consultancy in New Zealand in 1988, a business that eventually became Porter Novelli New Zealand of which she was Managing Director.
Prior to forming Crossman Communications again in Australia in 2003, she was Executive Director of NISAD Schizophrenia Research based at the Garvan Institute in Sydney. Crossman Communications was acquired by Red Agency on 1 January 2016 with Crossman appointed Sydney Principal.
The creator of the long-running Weet-Bix Kids Tryathlon, National Vegetarian Week and ‘Thank You Day’ for Research Australia, Crossman has counselled many of Australia’s most successful companies and has won multiple PR awards at state, national and international level.
Sofia Dedes
Managing Director
Will & Word Communications
Having spent a good part of her 15 year career advising Government Ministers and Premiers, Sofia Dedes has also worked for United Nations in Lebanon and prides herself on being cool in a crisis. Sofia increased the profile and promoted the research work of the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne and the Heart Foundation of Australia, educating the community about the risk of heart disease, Australia’s single biggest killer.
A Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), her early career was spent in journalism, working for both The Age and Leader Newspapers. Having managed media and crisis across the globe, Sofia recently started her own communications consultancy. She is a firm believer in advocating for the greater good and carving a path for the next generation of journalists and media professionals, To that end, Sofia is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Media, PR & Communications (Influence/Impact) at RMIT in Melbourne and is a Board Member for Timor-Leste charity Alola Australia.
Davitha Ghiassi
Head of #RedSocial
Red Agency
Davitha Ghiassi is an experienced and expert integrated social media professional.
Dav discovered her love for social media marketing within the creative agency space at Saatchi & Saatchi, where she started to specialise in this dynamic and ever-changing field before taking on the management of key accounts such as Hungry Jack’s at digitally led agency Channel T.
From here she moved into a social strategy and team lead role at digital creative agency REBORN, working with clients such as REVLON, Metcash and Lion prior to taking on the leadership and development of Red Agency’s national specialist social media division #RedSocial as Head of Social.
Gaining such varied agency experience has allowed Dav to develop an in depth understanding through the line marketing activity, rather than managed in a silo.
Since commencing her role at Red Agency mid last year she has led the division’s significant growth, which now has a number of clients across social media as well as integrated Social, Digital, PR and Media, including Moët Hennessy, SunRice, NSW EPA, Reckon and Goodness Beauty Lab.
Kate Greenwood
Insights Specialist
Isentia
Kate is an Insights Specialist at Isentia, where she produces media analysis for a wide range of government clients. Kate has been researching media for over ten years, and is fascinated by the stories we tell ourselves through the media about ourselves and the world we live in, and how we can use data about these stories to enact change. Kate’s research on gender and age discrimination has been recognised with awards from the international Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication. Kate holds a PhD in English from the University of Adelaide, where she also worked as a tutor and lecturer in the disciplines of English and Media, and is currently completing a Master of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne.
Imogen Hewitt
Chief Strategy Officer
Havas Media
Imogen has spent the last 16 years learning, honing and learning some more in full service, media and creative agencies both in Australia and South East Asia. In those years she has held many positions with roles across media, digital, creative, brand and agency management. In 2010 Imogen moved to Singapore to become founder and managing partner of Naked Communications South East Asia. She managed clients such as Coca-Cola, Diageo and Nokia across multiple markets. During her time at the helm the agency held assignments from countries as diverse as China, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and India.
Her broad background has sharpened her ability to think across disciplines and channels; To be able to bring a diverse strategic point of view to the tasks and challenges of communications now.
She is passionate about ideas, but no less passionate about the propagation of them. A dedicated believer in the power of great content, made greater still by brilliant context.
She holds herself, her work and her colleagues to the truth that "what we do is largely insignificant to real people getting on with real lives, so we had better make it spectacular".
Imogen has received numerous industry awards and judged many high profile awards - Most recently (2014/5)- Festival of Media global, Festival of media APAC, WARC prize for Asian Strategy.
Sally Hill is the founder of experience design and event company Wildwon, and the driving force behind Purpose, an annual conference that champions positive and purpose-driven business.
A long-time sustainability advocate, Sally has a vast knowledge of sustainable and responsible business, as well as the strategic communications expertise required to create shifts in attitude and behaviour. After working in environmental and human rights advocacy, corporate social responsibility and sustainability early in her career, Sally, started Wildwon: the meaningful experience agency. Today they apply a human-centred design approach to social change and work with clients as diverse as Australian Progress, the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage, The Victorian Women's Trust, RMIT University and gDiapers, a cradle-to-cradle diaper company.
Sally regularly speaks about sustainability, entrepreneurship, community-building and experience as a catalyst for social change.
Gemma Hudson
General Manager
WE Buchan
Gemma has 16 years’ experience in public relations and communications across Australia and the UK. She joined Buchan as Sydney GM in 2013 making her one of the youngest PR agency GM’s in Australia at the time. Just nine months later she was promoted to National GM and became an equity partner in the business. She worked alongside her fellow directors to develop and drive a three-year transformation strategy, culminating in global agency, WE Communications increasing its stake in the business to a majority position in April 2016, elevating Buchan to a global force under the new name of WE Buchan.
Gemma leads teams working across consumer, technology, health and corporate sectors with clients including HCF, Cotton On Group, eHarmony, GSK, Bluewolf and Salmat.
She works with clients to understand the landscape they are operating in and strives to develop creative solutions to business and communication challenges. Commercially minded, Gemma ensures all campaigns are aligned to broader business objectives. During her career, she has led many successful campaigns including new product launches, integrated PR, digital & experiential programs, issues management, thought-leadership campaigns, corporate profiling and B2C media relations and engagement.
At WE Buchan, Gemma played an instrumental role in leading the agency to win PRIA Large Consultancy of the Year 2016. In addition, a number of her campaigns have received industry recognition from the PRIA, Australian Journal of Pharmacy and PRIME. Most recently, Gemma was a finalist in Emerging Leader in the Commercial Sector category for the 2016 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards.
Prior to joining the agency, Gemma spent 12 years working in health communications most notably building and leading the health team at Haystac working with clients across the pharmaceutical and not-for-profit sector. She has also worked at Edelman and Burson Marsteller.
Gemma holds a BSc in Pharmacology from the University of Sheffield.
Skye Laris
Social Media and Content Strategist
AGL
Skye Laris is an independent consultant in public policy and digital communications.
Skye's has spent the past couple of decades working for senior state and federal ministers, NGOs and the private sector.
Much of her work has focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Derek is the PR manager for Kellogg Australia & New Zealand, and is responsible for consumer PR initiatives driving Kellogg brands, such as launching Kellogg’s first cereal café in Sydney. He has 9 years of experience in communications and PR through both agency and in-house roles. Prior to Kellogg, Derek was corporate communications advisor for Optus during the launch of its 4G network and regional mobile expansion across Australia.
Ava Lawler
Managing Director
Weber Shandwick
Ava has spent more than 26 years in global public relations working with many international and local brands across Australia, Asia Pacific, Europe and South Africa. Ava began her career in Brisbane before her love of adventure took her to London and then South Africa where she developed a strong understanding of the technology sector and expertise in corporate communication. Ava returned to Australia in an agency business management role and she has spent more than 18 years of her career managing agency businesses in Australia and across Asia Pacific. Currently the Managing Director of Weber Shandwick, Ava directs the team to produce innovative work and ensures client satisfaction.
Rachael Lonergan
Head of Strategy
Foundation, Omnicom Media Group
Rachael is an award-winning creative and media strategist with over 20 years of experience both in Australia and the United States. She’s worked with some of the biggest marketing brands in the world, as well as some of the most passionate start-ups. Her experience with digital strategy extends as far back as the year 1999, before Y2K was scheduled to destroy the world.
In 2016 she was named a Top Ten Linkedin Agency Influencer (one of two women to make the list). She has been widely published in industry journals, business magazines and in WARC. She has spoken at numerous industry events and conferences. However, her favourite credit to date comes via writer John Birmingham, who blows up a character named in her honour in his novel, After America.
She is currently Head of Strategy at Foundation, a boutique media agency within the Omnicom Media Group.
Sofia Madden
Director
Principle Co
Sofia is an experienced general manager and producer with a mix of management, project delivery, creative and client service skills developed across a variety of production and campaign environments. Sofia co-founded Principle Co., a strategic and creative agency that works with advocacy, non-profit and political organisations to create change by building constituent engagement on the issues that matter.
Alana Mann
Chair of Media & Communications
University of Sydney
Dr Alana Mann is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. Prior to joining the academy in 2006 she worked in marketing and public relations in organisations including Fairfax Media, The Smith Family and Bertelsmann UK. She leads research projects within the Sydney Environment Institute (SEI) and the Charles Perkins Centre, and sits on the executive committee of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), an organisation dedicated to creating a more ecologically sound and fairer food system for all Australians. In 2014 Palgrave Macmillan published her book on international food sovereignty campaigns, Global Activism in Food Politics: Power Shift.
Alana is now Chair, Media & Communcations.
Kate McBean
Head of PR & Marketing
Yahoo7
Kate McBean is Head of Marketing and PR for Yahoo7 Australia and New Zealand. She is a passionate marketing and communications leader, with a proven track record managing innovative and effective marketing and PR strategies. Kate is responsible for leading the strategy and implementation of all audience acquisition and engagement, consumer and trade PR, and internal communications for the Australian and New Zealand markets.
Kate oversees the consumer marketing and PR team and is tasked with maximising brand awareness, affinity and preference, while ensuring quality brand experiences wherever the Yahoo7 name is visible.
Kate has more than 14 years marketing experience, including heading up Foxtel's digital sales and marketing division. She has been with Yahoo7 for ten years, previously working across early platform integrations with Channel Seven.
Kate holds a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Film & Television and Geography from the University of New South Wales.
Nicole McInnes
Managing Director Australia
eHarmony
For years Nicole has been fascinated with people and how they connect and has created a successful career finding the common point between brands, the world around us and what people want. With marketing and advertising experience across 22 years, Nicole uniquely combines creative whimsy with a deep understanding of marketing data.
Stints with Dell, Amex, Ogilvy and now eHarmony, have convinced her these two often opposing pillars combined are the best future for brands. She believes that marketing can enhance people's lives to the point where it can change the world, especially when your company is built to create happiness through human connection.
Asha Oberoi
Head of Insights, Australia
Isentia
Asha joined Isentia as Head of Insights in October last year, Asha is an experienced media executive, with 20 years’ experience working in sales, digital and content management roles within the global print, digital and broadcast media industry for organizations such as the BBC, The UK Press Association and ITN Ltd.
Asha has a BA degree in Multimedia Journalism and has served on the board as a non-executive director of two digital media businesses in the UK.
Neil O’Sullivan
Senior Product Marketing Manager APAC
CBSI
Originally from the island of Ireland, Neil started his career at Pareto3d, a marketing experiential agency before spending a nine-year period in the not-for-profit sectors both in Ireland and Australia. While he was at Special Olympics in Ireland, he worked across a world summer and world winter games in Greece and the US before moving to Australia in 2011.
During his first two years in Melbourne, he worked within the Oxfam Australia communication team on their global Trailwalker event. He then joined the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) towards the end of his time in Melbourne and eventually moved to Sydney in 2014 after taking over the National Marketing and Communication Manager role with the industry body. He then moved out of the world of PR in 2016 and joined the ranks at CBS Interactive as the Senior Product Marketing Manager for APAC. CBSi is the digital publishing arm of the CBS Network originated from the US, with offices all across North America, the UK, Singapore and locally here in Australia, specialising in industry sectors like business technology, consumer technology, entertainment, gaming, music and sports.
An avid sports enthusiast, Neil has played various codes throughout his life. He currently plays soccer in the NSW NPL 3 with Dunbar Rovers and has previous state honours in rounders, soccer, hurling and gaelic football from back in Ireland.
As a passionate advocate for mental health, Neil also sits on two volunteer groups, Darkness Into Light Sydney (DIL) - a global event - and the Light Ball Sydney (LBS) - an initiative created in Sydney by he and his colleagues who have had people close to them affected by mental health - who both tackle the stigma associated with the topic. In 2016, DIL Sydney raised $60k AUD for batyr - a charity tackling the issue with the youth of Australia - and the LBS raised a staggering $150k AUD for the same charity - after raising $70k AUD the previous year for beyondblue. He's also been published by the Irish Times newspaper in Ireland on the subject and has also made several appearances on radio.
In 2015, Piktochart, the global online graphic design tool featured Neil in their customer profile video series and in 2016, he was also selected as a finalist for the Irish Chamber Australian Business Awards, in the Young Professional category. He's also a member of the Leadership Think Tank Senior Executive peer-to-peer group in Sydney.
Jane Power
Marketing Director
BUPA ANZ
Jane is a commercially oriented and forward-thinking leader with proven success in delivering strategic marketing outcomes across a range of industries.
Starting in media and public relations, Jane’s marketing career has spanned across retail, financial services and now the health sector.
Launching one of the first shopping ‘loyalty cards’ at Westfield unlocked a passion for loyalty marketing which led Jane’s career to financial services across CBA, NAB/MLC and the Suncorp Group. During this time, she had the privilege to work with brands such as AAMI and Suncorp across large scale insurance brands.
Jane joined Bupa in 2013 and after two years in the role of Director, Brand & Health and Care Marketing for Bupa, Australia and New Zealand - where her diverse remit included marketing strategy, ANZ and Global brand, sponsorships and activations, content, social media and the Financial Services business at Bupa - Jane was appointed the Chief Marketing Officer in January 2017. Leading the Marketing team at Bupa enables Jane to continue to marry her personal passion for Health and Wellbeing with an organisational purpose – Longer, healthier, happier lives.
Jane is also a mother of two girls, and strives for work/life “integration” as she juggles work and home life with a smile and strong sense of humour.
Susan Redden Makatoa
Division Director
Temple Executive Search
Susan is one of Australia’s leading corporate communications practitioners with over 20 years’ industry experience providing advice to leaders across the business, government and not-for-profit sectors. At Temple, Susan focuses on finding outstanding candidates for corporate clients and working with those clients to develop their team’s capabilities.
Most recently, Susan was Group Managing Director – Corporate for Ogilvy Public Relations, one of Australia’s leading PR agencies, overseeing public affairs agency Parker & Partners, employee engagement firm Ogilvy Impact and Ogilvy’s Corporate practice. She was previously a partner at SenateSHJ, and held senior roles at Savage & Horrigan, ASIC and the NSW Business Chamber.
Dedicated to the growth and development of the communications profession, Susan is a Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia. In 2016 was awarded the PRIA President’s Award for major industry contribution. She has also won four global IABC Gold Quills, five regional Golden Sabres and eight PRIA National Golden Targets. She has judged the PRIA Golden Targets and Mumbrella CommsCon awards and organised two PRIA annual conferences.
Deeply committed to diversity in the workplace, Susan was the author of the PRIA’s first diversity and inclusion policy in 2016. She has also been a speaker on the subject at TEDx, Macquarie University, IABC Global Conference, Women in Media and Communications and the CEO Institute.
Susan is an accredited member of the AICD and sits on the boards of Tresillian Family Care Centres, social philanthropy group Benojo and the Touched by Olivia Foundation.
Michelle Redfern
Advancing Women in Business & Sport
Michelle Redfern
Michelle is the founder of Advancing Women in Business & Sport, which specialises in providing advisory services for women & specialist business improvement consulting. Michelle has also founded “Women Who Get It” a strategic networking forum for professional women. The #WWGI member base now numbers more than 1300 women and events are held four times a year in Melbourne and Sydney.
Michelle has had a distinguished corporate career having held executive leadership roles in the Banking, Telco, BPO and 3PL industries for blue chip companies such as NAB, Telstra, Serco and Aegis. She is well known for both her business acumen, being a performance turnaround specialist as well as her passion and work on gender equality and female leadership development.
Michelle has previously held board positions with the Gippsland League, the AFL’s largest Victorian regional league where she was key in establishing the women’s game and with Swinburne University’s Business Without Borders social enterprise. She is currently a VFL Club Director, a panel judge for the Telstra Business Women’s Awards and for the Telstra Business Awards.
Michelle is a Graduate of the AICD, holds an Executive MBA (Distinction) from RMIT where she majored in leadership, innovation & strategy and is a IECL qualified coach. She is happily known as a football tragic and gets to as many games as she can to support her West Coast Eagles and the AFL Women’s game.
Sarah Rosales
National Marketing Manager
Hino Motor Sales Australia
Sarah Rosales has amassed a broad and varied marketing and brand building experience base with over 17 years of experience in strategic marketing and specialised B2B and B2C marketing.
Sarah is an extremely passionate strategic marketer and specialises in the creation of innovative brand strategies matched with cost efficient and successful implementation plans.
Sarah Rosales has lead the Marketing for Hino Motor Sales Australia since October 2014 and is responsible for the creation and management of the strategic marketing plan for the Hino Brand in Australia.
In addition, Sarah directs the company’s national marketing campaigns, events and drive programs for Hino products, along with the ensuring consistent customer communications. In 2016 she was responsible for the first Hino sponsorship in its 50 year history taking the brand successfully into Supercars as the official Light and Medium duty truck sponsor for Supercars Australia.
Before joining Hino, Rosales was the group Marketing Manager for Australia’s largest automotive retailer, Automotive Holdings Group (AHG), having joined AHG in 2007. Previously she held management positions in brand and marketing with Hyundai Motor Company Australia.
Sarah holds a BA Communication, Public Relations and a Master of Business Marketing. In addition to the 10 years working specifically for automotive industry, she also has experience across health, government and IT industries spanning the last 17 years.
Rebecca Sands
Associate Director PR & Communications
Knight Frank
Rebecca leads the national public relations for Knight Frank Australia, overseeing the firm’s external communications initiatives across media and digital marketing channels. With over a decade of experience across agency and in-house, Rebecca has managed communications initiatives for a number of global firms across consumer, technology, property, and professional services sectors. Rebecca holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Media in Writing from Macquarie University, majoring in PR and Journalism.
Isabel Sandercock-Brown
Communications Manager
Salvation Army
Isabel started out her career in the print industry, working at madison, an Australian women’s magazine, until it’s closure in 2012. Realising that digital wasn’t going anywhere but up, she made the jump and worked for a digital service design agency in London, followed by an online retailer in Australia.
Two years ago she moved over to the Non-for-Profit sector to work in the PR team for The Salvation Army, an organisation she had previously been involved with in a number of ways. After five months, Isabel moved into the online team and is now the Online Communications Manager for The Salvation Army in NSW, ACT and Queensland.
Shannon Short
PR & Communications Manager
Catholic Education SA
Shannon is a public relations professional with extensive experience in the not-for-profit sector. Shannon’s roles have included developing communications strategy for the national mental health and wellbeing initiative - KidsMatter Primary – a role that has heavily influenced her thinking on work life balance and mental wellness.
Other not-for-profits to benefit from her expertise include Principals Australia Institute, the Uniting Church and UnitingCare. She now works for Catholic Education South Australia, leading marketing and promotion for the network of over 100 primary and secondary schools.
Shannon is more interested in promoting social causes than selling widgets and specialises on being creative with narrow budgets and small teams. With strengths in internal communication, stakeholder engagement and brand management, she is passionate about excellence in communication.
Daniel Stone
Director
Principle Co
Daniel is an experienced communications professional, having worked on a number of national, state and local progressive campaigns. He specialises in data led campaign communication and media production - with a focus on developing digital, video graphic tools that engage and move people to action.
Rebecca Wilson is Chief Executive Officer of national independent agency WE Buchan. She has been CEO since March 2014, with the agency for 18 years and consultant for more than 20 years.
As CEO, she has successfully:
- Facilitated a generational leadership program to create a team to energise and contemporise the business
- Established new growth channels to ultimately build a strong agency for the future
- Positioned the agency for global growth through a partnership with WE Communications, one of the largest independent communication agencies globally
- Managed M&A transaction with WE Communications
- Introduced new processes and products for client and staff retention
- Established more efficient HR and finance processes
She has achieved consistent double digit growth in both profit and consulting fees and has a strong record of accomplishment in driving organic and new growth. She established the Sydney office in 2002 and lead the expansion of that office before returning to Melbourne in 2008. She also established the agency’s investor communication capability which is the largest single team in the firm. WE Buchan was awarded Large Agency of the Year in the Golden Target Awards in 2016.
As a consultant, Rebecca specialises in complex stakeholder engagement and communication including critical incident response, issues management and mitigation, reputation protection and crisis management, investor relations, corporate transactions (M&A, IPO) and board and management advice.
Rebecca works with Boards and executive management teams to respond to critical incident or high impact commercial incidents, transactions, and opportunities through the management of internal and external stakeholders including employees, investors, regulators, legal counsel, customers, families, emergency services, governments, media and the public.
Rebecca is a former journalist with a BA Arts (Journalism / Business Law majors) and has a post graduate certificate in Applied Finance and Investment.
Speaking opportunities are now available!
Present your company, showcase your expertise and demonstrate how you can help by speaking to this gathering of leaders in the field of PR & communications.
Use this unique forum to voice your opinions on the most important issues facing PR and comms today. Speakers will assert themselves as facilitators of the future success of communications professionals.
Contact Bill Gatsis on +61 (0)2 8488 9948 or billg@questevents.com.au to find out how we can put you in front of a highly engaged and receptive audience.
You can also download a copy of the partnership prospectus here.
