A communication and corporate affairs specialist with close to two decades of demonstrated success supporting organisations across diverse industries.
INTRODUCTION
I help organisations achieve their goals and maintain their social licence to operate.
I do this by sharing what’s important with the people who matter in order to positively impact reputation, trust, and advocacy.
Whether you’re looking to communicate and connect directly with employees and customers/consumers/clients, or to reach key stakeholders via intermediaries such as journalists who play a role in informing how people think, feel, and act, I have the capability and experience to support you.
I typically work with leadership teams or as an extension of in-house corporate affairs and communications resource to:
- Build relationships with important stakeholders, both internal and external;
- Shape opinions of your organisation and brand/s; and/or
- Deliver successful transformation and change initiatives including: new strategic directions; refreshed leadership teams; technology, system, or process adoption; and, restructures.
SERVICES
I can lead, inform, or support your strategic communication planning and/or the detailed execution of your plans.
Specifically, I can help you to achieve your goals through:
Strategic stakeholder engagement and communication planning
A well-considered plan that clearly outlines activities needed to drive specific, measurable, and time-bound objectives, is the start point of any engagement or communications effort. I bring informed perspective for consideration and can work as an extension to leadership teams or with in-house or retained communications resource to help distil the problem – including what success looks like. I can then support you by developing a sound plan that considers both opportunities and challenges, including any vulnerabilities.
Message development
Distilling your organisation’s message into a palatable and compelling narrative that can be consistently deployed is central to any communication effort. I can help make the complex simple, to aid understanding and drive a desired outcome. I also offer a fresh set of eyes on your existing content and can shape/edit it for effectiveness and to reduce potential vulnerabilities.
Content creation
I have deep experience developing compelling content that supports business outcomes. This includes keynote addresses delivered at important conferences; the copywriting of documents and web content; storyboarding of videos and animations; and, development of imagery, infographic, and written content for social posts. I can support you to first consider the channel and format best-suited to achieving a desired outcome with an identified audience. I will then copywrite and work with your in-house or retained creative agency on design elements of the content to ensure impact.
Communication channel strategy and execution
Reaching stakeholders in ways and at times that are meaningful and make sense, is a cornerstone of a successful engagement or communications effort. I can help you to consider how best to utilise your existing channels. I can also support you to introduce additional channels where gaps are identified. Channels may be online (e.g. email, websites, intranets, social media), offline (newsletters, pamphlets, signage, video), or personal (e.g. conferences, meetings, briefings).
Leadership communications, including public announcements and statements
I can help you to prepare for public announcements through the creation of content (e.g. speeches, media releases, FAQs, presentations) and by arranging any suitable capability coaching (e.g. media training or presentation skills). I can also support you to respond to requests for information by creating reactive media statements and other stakeholder responses.
Media (including social) engagement and influence
I can help identify key media and journalists for your industry and campaign/issues. I can also support you by developing and executing both proactive, brand-building campaigns and reactive, issue-management responses.
Employee engagement
Driving advocacy amongst employees should be at the heart of any communications plan with an informed, inspired, engaged, and empowered workforce key to the delivery of organisational strategy. I can help you connect with your team and lift engagement levels through a considered internal communications plan and effort.
Customer engagement
Proactively managing direct customer engagement and communication during an issue or time of change is an important and sometimes overlooked aspect of an organisation’s communication response. I can support you to reach customers with important information that influences their understanding and perception of an issue, event ,or decision and, ultimately, their levels of trust in your organisation.
To deliver these services I can work with your preferred suppliers or tap into my broad network of professional relationships.
This network includes similarly credentialed specialists; photographers, creative design agencies, and video production houses for collateral design and development; and, journalists or presentation specialists who offer media and presentation training services.
EXPERIENCE
I’ve worked for some of Australia’s, and the world’s, most loved brands, developing and executing communication plans that contributed to the successful delivery of the corporate strategy.
I started my career at a small, public relations consultancy where I grew my stakeholder engagement and media relations skills working across government, education, and consumer clients. Subsequently, I spent over a decade working within communications and corporate affairs teams at Lion Nathan (now Lion), McDonald’s Australia, and Coca-Cola Amatil. In these roles I was responsible for driving the corporate agenda across important and often high-profile public, industry, and business issues. Specifically, I managed the reputation of the businesses and their brands amongst stakeholders – from employees, partners, and customers/consumers/clients to journalists, special interest groups, government ministers and their staff, and the communities each organisation touched.
In 2015 I moved into healthcare as the Head of Corporate Affairs, and a member of the executive leadership team, for Bupa Aged Care Australia. In this role I led a small, dynamic communications team to deliver outcomes across employee engagement (internal communications), external relations (PR and issues management, with general oversight of government, policy and regulatory matters), and corporate responsibility and sustainability (CR&S).
In my most recent corporate role I led a team of employee communication specialists at insurance-giant IAG. Our priority was to engage IAG’s 7000-strong NRMA, CGU, and other leading insurance brand workforces through a period of significant internal change as necessitated by the corporate strategy and leadership changes. And to do so against a backdrop of intense public interest and scrutiny due to the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.
I founded VivEm Communications (trading as Amy McNaughton) in late 2018 to provide organisations with flexible, efficient, and senior communications support for strategic priorities and workplans. VivEm clients include/have included: AGL Energy; Bupa Dental; infrastructure services provider Ventia; health advisory firm Quality Edge; and, the clients of corporate communications consultancy, Res Publica.
I hold a BA (Communications) from Charles Sturt University where I graduated with Distinction and was awarded the University Medal. I also hold a Diploma in Financial Markets from FINSIA. More information on my background and achievements can be found on LinkedIn.