Our Team

Prior to his current role, John was Ogilvy PR’s Managing Director in Australia for three years.

John joined Ogilvy PR as one of the founders of Ogilvy PR in Australia when he sold Impact Employee Communications, a firm that he had co-founded, to Ogilvy PR in 2001. John is on the board of each of the Ogilvy PR companies in Australia.

John  also serves on the Fundraising Advisory Board of Jeans for Genes.

John has a Bachelor of Education (Sydney University) and MBA (Macquarie University).

Kieran was appointed CEO in 2011 and is responsible for managing the six specialist PR firms within Ogilvy PR Australia as well as marketing, business and leadership development. Kieran also manages a number of clients and as a highly sought after senior practitioner her teams have won more than a 20 international awards for client campaigns in the last two years.

Prior to this role Kieran was Joint Managing Director of business to business and technology firm Howorth, part of Ogilvy PR Australia, for eight years where she was responsible for strategic level communication services as well as the development of new value-added services that enhanced Howorth’s clients’ reputations.

Before returning to Australia eight years ago, Kieran was a board director and shareholder of one of Europe’s largest independent PR companies, Firefly Communications for more than 10 years. When she joined there were eight people and in 2002 when she left there were more than 140 consultants in London, Paris, Edinburgh and Munich. In 2001 it was Awarded PR Week Consultancy of the Year.

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

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.

A brand PR specialist, Matt has spent the last 12 years working at some of the UK’s leading PR agencies developing award-winning creative communications campaigns for the likes of Coca-Cola, Molson Coors, Samsung and eBay.

Matt’s career highlights over the past decade include launching Coke Zero in the UK and across Europe making it Coca-Cola’s most successful product launch in 20 years; launching the UK’s first internet bank; and award-winning work for Pfizer to position the pharma giant as the leader in the fight against counterfeit medicine.

At Pulse, Matt is responsible for the strategic and creative direction across all clients, along with new business development.

Prior to relocating to the UK in 1999, Matt worked for Hill & Knowlton and Porter Novelli Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations from RMIT University.

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 Ogilvy PR, 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.

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.

He has extensive knowledge of working in and with government and the media, and has managed a number of successful campaigns, launches and policy initiatives, including State Budgets and major infrastructure statements. He also has considerable experience in the areas of privatisations, tax policy, state-federal relations, and energy and utilities.

Prior to working in politics, Mathew worked as a journalist and public relations specialist in the community sector, providing him with substantial involvement in grass roots campaigns. Mathew’s experience across media, policy and politics allows him to carry forward clients’ objectives through both sound communications strategies and meaningful political engagement.

Emma’s current role is split between Asia and Australia. Reporting to the Regional President, Emma acts as Regional Finance Director for Ogilvy PR in Asia Pacific, and is involved in developing and driving regional strategy, M&A, financial analysis and reporting. Locally, Emma oversees Talent and HR and acts as Operations Director for the Ogilvy PR companies and Ogilvy Healthworld. Her role includes helping to drive the financial and operational effectiveness of each business entity, and of the group as a whole, with a strong emphasis on talent strategy and management to meet business goals.

She also works on M&A, shareholder communications, delivers in-house coaching and training, and performs the project management for Ogilvy PR’s growth initiatives.

Emma is Company Secretary of all the Ogilvy PR companies, and of Ogilvy Healthworld, and sits on the Leadership Team of both businesses.

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.

Lelde is experienced in strategic planning for integrated brand and reputation communications for large organisations and has a special interest in behaviour change campaigns. She has worked on some of Australia’s most important social issues including road safety, obesity, smoking control, cancer prevention, responsible alcohol consumption and sustainability.

A Fellow and former National President of the Public Relations Institute of Australia Lelde is also the founder of the Women in PR fundraising group and a Golden Target Awards judge. Lelde has spoken at many communication conferences across the globe, and for the past two years has been a member of the Gold Quill Blue Ribbon judging panel for the International Association of Business Communicators.She has won many local and international industry awards for her work.

Lelde has a commerce degree from the University of Melbourne and a journalism degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University. She also has studied for a Masters of Communications Management at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in New York State.

As Media Director, Sam provides senior counsel on media engagement, crisis and issues management. Since joining Ogilvy PR 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.

His current role as Finance Director involves being each Managing Director’s business partner, offering financial counsel and support, whilst ensuring audit compliance. Paul’s main focus is ensuring that high standards of service and work are delivered to the businesses.

Prior to his move to Sydney, Paul was the Financial Controller of Aquascutum – a London luxury fashion brand, where his greatest achievement was re-building and then leading the finance department into a team which interacted well with the business, and performed to their best.

Paul holds a honours degree in Law from the University of Wales and was made a Fellow of the Certified Chartered Accountants in 2005.

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 afield 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).

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.

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, Senatas, Teradata and VERITAS Software. He also established and managed a pan-Asian network for both Borland and Lexmark.

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

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