I started in journalism.

Nearly twenty years later, that is still the work.

I advise organisations whose subject matter is genuinely difficult: universities, government departments and funded programs, research institutes, development agencies and technical teams inside large organisations. The people they need to reach, ministers and boards and journalists and partners and the public, encounter that work cold. No context, no shared vocabulary, and a decision formed in roughly fifteen seconds.

Everything I do sits at that handover.

What that has looked like

Directing national and international media campaigns. Advising executives and diplomats through sensitive and high profile issues. Training researchers and senior leaders to hold their own in a studio. Leading communications strategy for Australian Government development programs across Asia, Africa and the Pacific.

My work spans the university, government and international development sectors: taking research from the laboratory into the public conversation, making complex government programs legible to the audiences that fund them, and preparing technical experts to speak for their own work.

How I work

Three habits, formed in newsrooms and never really improved on.

Start with the reader, not the material. A document nobody finishes is rarely badly written. It is usually built for the wrong person. Who has to use this, what do they need to do with it, and what do they already know.

Find the accurate version that is also interesting. Both almost always exist. Communications that settles for one produces either a press release nobody reads or a claim the technical team will not stand behind.

Say what I actually think. You are paying for judgement. That includes telling you when a story is not worth pursuing, when an announcement will be misread, and when the honest answer is to say nothing yet.

Recognition

My research communication work has been recognised with service excellence awards, nominated by the research teams I supported. In a university, that is the endorsement that counts: researchers do not nominate a communications adviser unless the work has changed something for them.

Before this

Editorial note: list previous senior roles and employers here. Institutional names carry weight that descriptions cannot.

I am based in Melbourne and work with clients across Australia and internationally.