
· Daniel Ferrie, the Spokesperson from the European Commission covering among others financial services and banking,
· Dennis Larsen, Member of the BoD of the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD) and Managing Partner at ReputationInc, and
· Andrea Greenhous, Founder of Vision2Voice in Canada and a top 10 influencer in internal communications
globally shared tips and tricks on how to prepare properly, survive a crisis, ease the effects and learn from it.
The webinar started with welcome addresses by the President of AECM, Guy Selbherr as well as the Chairman and CEO of HDB & Member of the BoD of AECM and Chair of the Working Group Communication & Marketing, George Zavvos.
Mr Zavvos, underlined that effective crisis communication is a cornerstone of resilience and recovery in our permacrisis era and provided examples from the Eurozone crisis to the ongoing war in Ukraine, where clear and transparent communication has been instrumental in navigating critical challenges.
Mr Zavvos highlighted that efficient crisis communication extends beyond reputation management; it is a fundamental pillar of a functioning European democracy and a healthy public sphere.
The President of AECM, Guy Selbherr, thanked the Chair of the WG, Mr Zavvos and the Deputy Chair of this Working Group, Ms Sarantopoulou for taking the initiative to organise this webinar and said a few words about AECM, mentioning it is of utmost importance to provide a platform for the members to exchange best practices, to learn from each other, and to acquire knowledge.
The webinar was moderated by the Deputy Chair of the Working Group Communication & Marketing, as well as Deputy Director of Communication & Public Affairs at the Hellenic Development Bank, Maria Sarantopoulou, who underlined -among others- the need for organizations to be well prepared in advance and have clear communications goals and strategy.
The experts elaborated on this and focused on transparency, trust and clear messaging externally and internally, while underlining the transformative impact of AI in communication.
Special thanks to Katrin Sturm and Alice Awad from AECM for making this webinar a reality!
