Key Associates
These are our key associates. The company also has a much broader list of other associates and specialists who can be called upon to contribute to any assignment or project, anywhere, depending on the skills required.
Europe | Africa | Asia | Australia | North America | Latin America
North America
Lavonne Boutcher, Calgary
Lavonne Boutcher is a marketing writer and former journalist with experience in a wide range of communications activities including advertising copywriting, marketing, communications strategy, video script writing and production, print article writing and publications editing. Lavonne has also worked as a freelance television writer and producer, as well as a TV news and documentary reporter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for more than 15 years.
Robert Karniol, Montreal
Robert Karniol is a veteran military affairs journalist and was Asia-Pacific Editor of Jane's Defence Weekly from 1988-2007. He is a former columnist for the Singapore Straits Times. He has extensive military, government, industry and media contacts throughout Asia and Europe. He has delivered conference papers for the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies, the US Pacific Command, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, the US National Defence University, and the Australian Joint Services Staff College.
Neil Sawatsky, Montreal
Neil Sawatsky apprenticed and established a freelance business in graphic design and illustration in Montreal, 1976 - 78. He is former Art Director of Montreal Business Report Magazine and has worked as a freelance designer and illustrator in Hong Kong and Manila. Currently based in Montreal, Neil works with a range of clients to produce corporate logos and graphics, communication materials for print production, as well as website designs.
David Lord, Ottawa
David Lord, a former journalist, has worked for the past 25 years within Canadian, British and international non-governmental organizations focused on peacebuilding policy development and implementation. Particular areas of interest are political dialogue processes, organizational development and capacity-building, and advocacy and communications. He is a former executive director of Peacebuild - The Canadian Peacebuilding Network; co-founder and co-director of UK-based Conciliation Resources; field representative of The Carter Center in East Africa; and advisor to the Canadian Parliament's Defence Committee.
Europe
Douglas Hamilton, Glasgow
Douglas Hamilton has had a long career as a journalist and editor in Europe and in Canada. He has worked in a senior capacity as a business writer for The Glasgow Herald and for Business A.M. in London. Prior to that he worked for Canadian Press and the Montreal Daily News covering parliamentary affairs, and is at home in broadcasting, having worked as editor/producer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has also worked as chief speechwriter for the Canadian Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.
Alex Wynter, London
Alex Wynter is a freelance media consultant, advising clients on media relations and strategy and creating or editing multimedia products for a number of agencies including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme and WWF International. He has also worked extensively in broadcasting for such organizations as BBC World Service, Worldwide Television News and Associated Press Television. Alex is an accredited media tutor for the Reuters Foundation.
Frank Viviano, Barga / Italy
Frank Viviano is an award-winning journalist who began his work as a foreign correspondent in 1977. His syndicated articles have appeared in more than two hundred newspapers and magazines in North America, Europe and Asia. He has been a frequent guest at public conferences and on radio forums and television broadcasts in the United States, France, Italy, Britain, the Middle East, and China. Frank started out as a wire service reporter, then was China correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1986 to 1991. He was that newspaper's chief European and Middle Eastern correspondent from 1991 to 2002, when he began writing for National Geographic Magazine and other major publications. He is the author of seven books, published in 14 countries.
Australia
Sheryle Bagwell, Sydney
Sheryle Bagwell is one of Australia's leading business journalists and broadcasters. She is a former columnist and the former European Correspondent for the Australian Financial Review newspaper and has contributed over the years to a variety of other leading media organizations. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book about current affairs in France, entitled 'My French Connection'. Sheryle is currently Business Editor for ABC Radio National's flagship morning programme.
Caroline Falls, Sydney
Caroline Falls has three decades of experience as a journalist, editor and communications professional. She is the former Sydney correspondent for Bloomberg Business News, where she specialized in company and commodity news as well as currency, bond and equity markets. Caroline also has government experience, having worked in the senior executive service of Australia's Federal Government as a Director of Public Affairs. Caroline now works in the public relations and media monitoring sectors, and has extensive experience in custom
publications services, including editing, desktop publishing and book production.
Bruce Pollock, Sydney
Bruce Pollock has spent more than 30 years working as a journalist, editor and communications professional in Australia and Asia. His specialty is print production, design and layout and sub-editing. He has worked for a range of media, including the Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, Social Change Media/Pluto Press, and the China Mail and The Star newspapers in Hong Kong. Bruce is the former Publications Editor for the Australian Bicentennial Authority.
Prakash Vuree, Sydney
Prakash Vuree is an IT and web design professional with more than a dozen years of experience in information technology, infrastructure development, online/web and digital media services. He has devised and implemented various cross-platform applications and integrated digital web services for small-to-medium businesses. Prakash spent the first eight years of his working life in the corporate world in India, before settling in Australia.
Asia
Vittoria D'Alessio, Singapore
Vittoria D'Alessio is an award-winning writer and editor with over 20 years' international experience and articles published around the world. Among other publications, she has written for The Guardian, The London Times, the South China Morning Post, Marie Claire, Grazia and New Scientist. She is a published author and in recent years she has also cultivated roles writing commercial copy and running writing workshops.
Gwen Robinson, Tokyo
Gwen Robinson, former London-based Comment Editor of the Financial Times, is currently correspondent for the FT in Bangkok, where she set up recently following a long second stint for the newspaper in Tokyo. Gwen has covered politics and economics in Asia based in various countries, including previous three years in Thailand writing primarily for Economist Intelligence Unit publications. From 1985 to 1988 she worked in Manila as correspondent for The National Times, an Australian weekly current affairs newspaper.
Africa
Nicholas Kotch, Johannesberg
Nick Kotch has worked as a media consultant, journalism trainer and news correspondent and senior editor. Formerly Africa Bureau Chief for Reuters, and a 27-year veteran of that wire service, he has travelled widely on the continent, conducting courses for journalists and those who work with them. Nick has also run workshops for people and groups who want to communicate more effectively, particularly with the media. He was one of the Eminent Persons in the Commonwealth Observer Group at Cameroon's presidential elections in 2004. He was recently appointed Africa Editor for Business Day newspaper.
Andy Hill, Nairobi
Andy Hill is a former Reuters journalist with 27 years of broad reporting and editing experience around the world. After leaving Reuters, he spent four years working on communication projects for Oxfam in Israel/Palestine and was Regional Manager there for two years. Andy is now a media consultant and freelance editor, but spends much of his time on training projects in Africa, South Asia and elsewhere.
Latin America
Fernando Dantas, Rio de Janeiro
Fernando Dantas is a specialist in macro-economics and financial issues, working now as Special Correspondent for the respected Brazilian daily newspaper O Estado de São Paulo in their Rio office. He has very strong contacts in the business community and in government across South America. Fernando was London correspondent for Gazeta Mercantil in the 1990s, and is a former Visiting Fellow of the Journalists in Europe Foundation in Paris.
Greg Brosnan, Mexico City
Greg Brosnan has extensive experience in Latin America, having covered the spectrum of news there as a Reuters correspondent in Mexico City and before that tracking Latin American financial affairs from New York, particularly International Monetary Fund and World Bank decisions affecting the region. Greg has also worked for The Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg in Mexico. He holds a degree in Latin American studies from University of Portsmouth in the UK, and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.