CGIAR – Sustainability Leadership Communications

CGIAR (www.CGIAR.com) is the world’s foremost Consortium of agricultural research organisations and programnes. In March 2013 whilst leading Glasshouse, we won the account, and then I led their global communications strategy, reporting into the Global Director of Communications.

We worked up a strategy and led a two-day conference at their Corporate HQ in Montpelier to roll out that strategy and messaging to the 32 heads of communications from the different research programmes.

• In April 2013, CGIAR’s CCAFS (the global program on Climate Change, Agricultural and Food Security) was co-organising the Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Climate Justice in Dublin along with the Mary Robinson, and the Irish Government. The goal was to change the nature of the conversation on climate change to put agriculture in the spotlight and to demonstrate how supporting smallholder farmers in particular would be crucial. The idea was to use the voices of smallholders themselves and those bodies representing them to evidence how immediate and practical climate change adaptation was critical to survival.
• I led the communications strategy, messaging and spokesperson briefing for the conference, securing CGIAR CEO Frank Rijsberman an interview slot on The Today Programme and briefing him ahead of a very successful two minute interview which raised the profile of the conference and its key aims, as well as that of the CGIAR.