Our Team

Chairman, Ogilvy Public Relations

Chris is Chairman of Ogilvy PR Australia and was previously the Managing Director for 7 years. He is also the founding partner in Ogilvy PR’s specialist financial communication firm, Savage & Partners

Chris was appointed Chief Operating Officer of STW Group in September 2008.  Prior to this Chris was Head of Specialist Communications for the STW Group, a position held since  September 2007, where he led more than 20 specialist STW communication companies in the areas of public relations, market research, branded entertainment, sports marketing, training and facilitation, and strategy consulting.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism) from the University of South Australia (Adelaide).

Managing Director, Ogilvy Public Relations

John Studdert was appointed the Managing Director of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Australia, in January 2008.

In his role as Managing Director of Ogilvy PR Australia, John manages six specialist PR firms on behalf of Ogilvy PR Australia’s shareholders.

Prior to that, John was the Managing Director of Impact Employee Communications, an Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide Company, which he co-founded in 1996 having identified the opportunity to significantly improve the success of important company initiatives through improved internal communication.

John has worked with numerous leading Australian and International organisations helping them build employee support for a wide variety of business initiatives.

John’s formal qualifications include a Bachelor of Education (University of Sydney) and a Master of Business Administration (Macquarie University).

Managing Director, Ogilvy PR Health

Leon has ten years experience implementing successful health communication campaigns for major pharmaceutical and biotech companies, as well as professional associations and health technology organisations.

His experience extends to the most significant reimbursement campaigns over the last 10 years.

Before forming Ogilvy PR Health, Leon was a Director at the public affairs agency, Parker & Partners, where he developed a strong understanding of the role and influence government has in healthcare.

Leon has a strong understanding in health, as well as issues around the reimbursement processes that many campaigns often seek to influence.

Importantly Leon’s insights into Government come   from a background in politics when he worked as a policy adviser in the office of then Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon Dr Michael Wooldridge and as a health policy adviser with then Victorian Premier, the Hon Jeff Kennett.

Leon is a Director with the Australian Institute of Policy & Science.

Director – Talent & Finance, Ogilvy Public Relations
Regional Finance Director, Ogilvy Public Relations Asia Pacific

Emma has been with Ogilvy group worldwide since 2000, moving to Sydney in 2003 to join the Ogilvy PR group and Ogilvy Healthworld in Australia.

Since relocating, Emma has headed up the Finance team of Ogilvy PR in Australia, and more recently has taken on the group’s Talent and HR responsibilities. This varied role involves everything from HR and business strategy development to shareholder reporting, M&A and counsel.

Prior to living in Sydney, Emma spent 3 years working for the Ogilvy group in the UK – her roles there included Financial Accountant for O&M, finance systems training for Ogilvy in Europe, systems analysis and implementation and many other diverse projects.

She holds a Masters in Biochemistry from Jesus College, Oxford and is a fully qualified Chartered Accountant.

Managing Director, Parker & Partners
Managing Director, OgilvyEarth

An experienced political and policy consultant, Sarah Cruickshank has more than a dozen years’ experience in developing and implementing complex strategic communications campaigns on behalf of government, business and the community.  Since joining Parker & Partners in 2002 she has led a number of the company’s flagship award winning client accounts including Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, WMC Resources, Ricegrowers’ Association, the Taskforce on Care Costs (TOCC) and Unisys.

A co-founder in 2007 of Ogilvy’s sustainability communications practice, OgilvyEarth, Sarah’s particular expertise is in the public policy issues and challenges facing Australian industry, as well as the inextricable link between business operations and the increasing social and environmental considerations driven by community and government.  Related recent client experience includes BlueScope Steel, Origin Energy, Microsoft, the Green Building Council of Australia, Invest Brisbane, Cochlear and the Australian Government.  Effective advocacy, third party stakeholder relations and issues management have been core to each of these campaigns.

Sarah regularly speaks at industry forums about trends in public affairs most recently for the Green Cities Conference (on sustainability issues), the PRIA, and the Property Council of Australia.

Prior to joining Parker & Partners, Sarah spent three years as a senior manager at a leading industry association, promoting the interests of business to State and Federal Government.  She also spent four years as a political adviser to Federal Government.

Director-Digital Strategy, Ogilvy Public Relations

Brian is one of the founding team members of Ogilvy’s 360° Digital Influence Group – Ogilvy PR’s latest and industry-leading social media practice designed to help brands in an era of changing sources of influence. He has more than eight years experience developing, managing and executing a range of award-winning digital marketing and social media campaigns on behalf of clients including Intel, Johnson & Johnson, DuPont, Yum! and National Institutes of Health to name a few.

Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Brian is an active member of the Social Media Club of Washington D.C. and has accrued a number of industry awards.

Managing Director, Impact Employee Communications
Managing Director, OgilvyEarth

Stephen brings very strong and diverse experience gained from working across a number of industries in a range of different senior roles. He works with project teams to develop and drive communication campaigns for a range of clients. However, his true passion at Impact has been to develop and drive its now rapidly-growing sustainability and environmental communication practice, OgilvyEarth, which he heads. Stephen has been instrumental in forging a close and successful partnership between Impact and the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), partnering with them to encourage major energy users to implement government-funded projects aimed at achieving energy saving through employee behaviour change. The OgilvyEarth practice has expanded its services to offer solutions in communicating with a wide range of stakeholders on sustainability performance and climate change response. Their client base includes airlines, government departments, manufacturing and industrial, banks, energy companies, major retail chains, facilities management and agencies.

In addition to his sustainability work, Stephen’s work for major companies across Australia has included realigning and embedding vision and values across large complex workforces, and developing campaigns to engage sales teams and safety programs to reduce injuries in heavily-industrial environments. To date, his growing client portfolio has included Qantas, Woolworths, Visy, Thales, Kellogg, Railcorp, Department of Defence, Inghams, Origin Energy and Telstra.

In 2007 Stephen was a panelist at the Climate Change Summit and a guest speaker at Origin Energy’s Climate Change presentation, where he presented key learnings and practices that lead to an effective sustainability program. He was on the expert panel at the Green Capital Event “Is it easy being Green. Marketing in the age of Spin”

Managing Director, Howorth

Kieran has 20 years’ experience in PR covering public relations strategy development and implementation, reputation and crisis management and corporate positioning for business to business and consumer focused companies both in the UK and Australia.

Kieran is currently responsible for strategic level communication services as well as the development of new value-added services that will enhance Howorth’s clients’ reputations.  She manages a number of clients and is responsible for the company’s marketing and business development.  Her teams have won more than a dozen international awards for client campaign.

She has a BA in Communications (PR/Journalism), Charles Sturt University (formerly Mitchell College), Australia.

Media Director, Ogilvy Public Relations

Sam North, former Managing Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, joined Ogilvy PR in the newly-created role of Media Director at the start of 2009. Sam brought more than 30 years of experience across the fields of media and management to the role.

As Media Director, Sam provides senior counsel on media engagement, crisis and issues management. Since joining Ogilvy he has provided advice to a number of major companies, including Ford Australia, Microsoft, Toshiba, Unilever and Yum Foods Australia.

Sam leads the Ogilvy media training unit, with a large number of training options being tailored to suit the particular needs of the client. Sam has prepared clients to handle any number of potentially damaging, or potentially advantageous, circumstances – from coaching for an appearance before a Senate committee, to getting people ready to make the most of an interview with a journalist from the local newspaper or a nationally-televised news program.

He has trained executives from many of Australia’s top-100 companies – from the most senior CEO through to senior management corporate affairs personnel and entry-level media officers.

Sam’s journalistic career included engaging, either as a writer, interviewer or manager, with every Prime Minister from Gough Whitlam to the present. Prior to his role as Managing Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, he worked in a number of senior positions at Fairfax including serving as Chief of Staff during the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He also was the Fairfax representative on the Australian Press Council for a number of years. Prior to joining Fairfax, he worked as an on-camera reporter for television news.

Managing Director, Parker & Partners

Greg is joint Managing Director of Parker & Partners, joining the company in 2003.

He is a specialist in government and public health having worked at the Senior Executive level in Federal and state and international health systems over many years.

Greg has significant international experience in the health and development sector having worked for the World Health Organisation,  the Asian Development Bank and World Bank in Central Asia, South East Asia and Western Pacific countries.

He has led major assignments for P&P in the areas of health and social policy, government relations and major policy reform campaigns.

Greg holds a number of senior Directorships including the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council, The Asthma Foundation of the ACT, L2S Communications New Zealand and Vaxine Pty Ltd. He also lectures in Health Sciences and Health Administration

Greg holds a Masters of Public Health, Degrees in Public Administration and Applied Science.

Managing Director, Impact Employee Communications

As one of Impact’s managing directors, Tam has been developing and driving strategic communication campaigns for a range of major organisations across employee, corporate, crisis and issues management and consumer disciplines in Australia, Asia Pacific and the UK for more than 14 years.

Also heading up Impact’s major change practice, her work has focused on tackling some of today’s toughest business challenges – downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and culture change – ensuring better alignment of internal messaging with business goals and associated behaviour change. Her change management communication work has taken her as far a field as South Africa, Korea, Malaysia and China.

Her clients have included Nestlé, BlueScope Steel, American Express, St George, Luxottica Retail and Specialty Fashion Group. And, while they’re varied, they all have one thing in common – a large, diverse workforce with tough communication challenges.

Previous experience includes a senior role at Ogilvy PR’s Pulse Communications, eight years in consultancy in London, two years with an NGO in Central America and Fiji, as well as other in-house marketing and PR roles in the UK.

Passionate about corporate social responsibility, Tam is also responsible for driving Ogilvy PR’s corporate social responsibility program, So Inspired, and is a director for FebFast, a registered Australian charity, which fundraises for alcohol and drug dependant adolescents and young adults.

She holds a BA (Hons) in Public Relations from Bournemouth University in the UK and a diploma in business information technology and is a member of the IABC and Australia’s Change Management Institute (CMI).

Chairman, Impact Employee Communications

After an extensive, results-driven background in the hospitality industry, David Sawicki co-founded Impact Employee Communications with John Studdert in 1996, and together they built what is now the region’s leading employee communication consultancy.

Appointed managing director in 2006 and working across a diverse industries with tough business challenges, David has played a pivotal role in developing, managing and achieving results for a wide range of our clients including: Arnott’s Biscuits, Austrade, Caltex Australia, Colonial, Commonwealth Bank, David Jones, FreightCorp (now Pacific National), Glaxo Smith Kline, Leighton Contractors, Pfizer, Qantas, Southcorp, TNT and Telstra.

While he has ultimate responsibility for the running of Impact, he is still very hands-on with clients, sharing a high level of skill and insight gained from one of the most successful careers in employee communication in Australia today.  He’s a regular facilitator for high profile employee events and summits and currently works as a coach to some of Australia’s most senior captains of industry.

Critical to David’s success has always been his ability to relate equally well with front-line employees and CEOs, which has always been a unique and valuable asset to our clients.

With the growing local and international recognition of Impact as a powerful force for change in employee communication, David regularly presents as a guest speaker to both local and international audiences.

Managing Director, Howorth

Graham White is currently joint managing director of Howorth Communications.  He joined Howorth in 2000 with more than ten years’ management and communications experience gained in the UK.

At Howorth, Graham has directed communications programs covering strategy development and implementation for major technology clients including AMD, BMC Software, Borland Software, Citrix Online, D-Link, EMC, Genesys Telecommunications, HDS, Intel, Lexmark, Manugistics, Microsoft, NCR, Network Appliance, RSA Security, Senetas, Teradata and VERITAS Software. He also established and managed a pan-Asian network for both Borland and Lexmark.

As joint managing director, in addition to his client and business development responsibilities, Graham looks after finance and operations.

Graham has a first-class Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Public Relations from Bournemouth University in England.