The IABC EMENA Podcast

What an unbelievable year! Now is the time to sit back and enjoy our podcast with Naomi Jones and Michael Nord as they discuss modern leadership. Both bring insights from the year that was 2020 and tips into how to step up for 2021. This is a refreshing podcast for communications professionals at all levels. Michael Nord is a senior communications and transformation professional with more than 25 years of experience. Michael has covered the communications and change spectrum from strategy and implementation to tactics, creating innovative digital and social media strategies – using new and cutting-edge techniques to engage stakeholders. He is a trained facilitator and experienced in learning and development, knowledge management, public relations, and management of large and small events, on a local and international level. He has held key positions in IABC, on chapter, regional and global level, and has spoken at many events. Naomi Jones is the Communications Director, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK. As Communications Director for SUEZ, Naomi has responsibility for both the communications and marketing teams for the UK and Sweden. From starting her career in agency life working in public affairs, she became a specialist in sustainability communications, crisis management and corporate communications, with experience spanning industries from retail to banking. In 2009, she became SUEZ group’s youngest ever head of department, aged 28. Naomi has been instrumental in numerous projects during her 11 years at SUEZ, including increasing SUEZ’s media share of voice in the waste management sector from fifth, to first position. In 2015, she project managed the group’s rebranding and repositioning in both the UK and Scandinavia, and has overseen the employee engagement programme resulting in the company being awarded the Sunday Times Best Companies’ ‘Best 25 Big Companies to Work For’ accolade in 2018 and again in 2020, for a predominantly operational and dispersed workforce. Naomi has co-authored the book 'Managing a Crisis: A Practical Guide' (2006, Palgrave Macmillan) and is a Chartered member of the CIPR and is a member of the CIPR’s STEM committee. We hope you enjoy our podcast, brought to you by the International Association of Business Communicators EMENA Region.

The time has come to end transactional recruitment! Discover how important it is to manage your brand throughout the recruitment process and the bigger implications it has not only on your bottom line but also long-term, being able to attract the right people to work for you. Konstanty Sliwowski talks with Monique Zytnik about the link between employee experience and customer experience and how strategic recruitment is surprisingly similar to strategic marketing and communication. Sprinkled throughout our conversation the examples and personal stories will help the keepers of your organisational brand understand why professional communicators have the opportunity yet again to make a positive improvement on how your company does business. Konstanty Sliwowski is the Founder and CEO of Caissa Recruitment who are specialised in the high-demand sector of engineering leaders and are focused on better candidate engagement and employer brand awareness.

What is our role as professional communicators in supporting inclusion? How does our profession measure up? Introduced by Monique Zytnik and facilitated by Gloria Walker, this is a recording of an inclusion and gender focused webinar held on 29 October 2020 featuring Ann-Marie Blake, Alex Malouf and Ana Adi. Our panellists draw on their own personal experiences and recent research including the Women in PR eBook published by Quadriga University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, which has contributions from many of our international IABC Members including Zora Artis, Mike Klein and Sia Papageorgiou. Our facilitator, Gloria Walker, is a highly experienced public relations and communications practitioner with both global in-house and consultancy experience. She has taught at universities in the US, UK and Thailand, has published in professional journals, and has given presentations at professional and academic conferences in the US, UK, Slovenia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Dubai and Turkey. Gloria is currently an adjunct professor in the MA Public Relations programme at the London College of Communication (UAL) and teaches undergraduate business and communications classes at the London campuses of Hult International Business School and Fordham University. She is a Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy and an active member of several professional associations including being the current treasurer of IABC’s EMENA Region board and member of the PRCA Council. Our first panellist, Ann-Marie Blake, is a communications consultant and leadership coach. She has a wealth of experience leading communicators and advising leaders in the world’s largest financial services organisations. Ann-Marie holds Chartered PR Practitioner status and sits on the International Executive Board for IABC. She is also a founder member of PRCA’s Race & Ethnicity Equity Board (REEB) that exists to create both immediate and long-term proportional racial equity within the PR and communications industry. Ann-Marie is based in London. Also with us is former IABC EMENA board member Alex Malouf, a marketing communications executive who has spent the last 17 years in the Middle East. Alex has lived across the region in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. He is the Corporate Communications Director for the Middle East and Africa at Schneider Electric. In his previous corporate communications role at Procter & Gamble, he was responsible for diversity and inclusion. Alex currently based in the United Arab Emirates. Our third panellist is Dr. Ana Adi, Professor of Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Quadriga University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. She is the Chair of the Digital Communication Awards, host of the Women in PR podcast and co-editor of the Women in PR ebook. When not writing about what communicators can learn from protests and social movements, she focuses on mid-term solutions for the professionalization and future-proofing of communicators. Thank you all for joining us! We hope you enjoy our podcast from our region. Follow us on Twitter: @iabceme and add your thoughts to this topic by using #iabc_inclusion.

Gender equality is finally getting the media it deserves. And that's where we start on this podcast. We talk with Claudia Vaccarone, one of IABC's best known members in EMENA who works as the Head of Diversity Programmes for Members at the European Broadcasting Union. The EBU released a seminal report in December on the state of gender parity in Europe's media. We ask Claudia about the findings of that report, and what communicators must also do to create equality in our own industry. Enjoy the podcast, and download the report at https://www.ebu.ch/publications/position-paper/guide/all-things-being-equal.

We're rebooting our podcast series for this year. And we're starting with Tim Salau. Tim, nicknamed Mr. Future of Work, is the CEO & Founder of Guide, a social e-learning app helping high school students learn essential life skills from their favorite creators, he's worked with top Fortune 500 & hypergrowth companies: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and WeWork championing innovation and inclusive technology. We spoke on the role internal communicators play in creating an open, forward-looking environment in our workplaces. Hear Tim's advice on what we should be doing, and who is setting an example for others to follow.

One of the most sought out experts in the area of leadership communications, Bob Pickard is often seen on Bloomberg and other media outlets sharing his views on the concept of "social leaders", executives who use social media to effective engage with employees and consumers. He joins the IABC EMENA podcast to talk about why we need to help our executives both understand why they should be on social media and how to make the most of these tools.

We speak to arguably IABC EMENA's most famous member Michael Ambjorn, who explains why service on a board is the best way to both give back to the industry and also to grow as a communications professional. For more information about IABC EMENA and details on how you can stand for board nominations, go to https://iabcemena.com/blog/2019/04/27/do-you-want-to-make-a-difference-to-the-profession-stand-for-the-19-20-emena-board/

Communicating through Purpose with EY's Lewis Woodward by IABC EMENA

IABC EMENA's former chair Neil Griffiths shares why you should stand for a board role with the world's largest family of communicators.

One of our EMENAComm keynote speakers was Joss Mathieson, the founder and director of Change Oasis. Joss spoke eloquently about his experiences heading up internal communications at companies such as GlaxoSmithKline. He joins us on the podcast to talk about managing change, how technology can help, and why internal communicators should be the "Rock Stars" of the communications industry.