SOPHIA DOWER

Prior to her current role at the New Leaders Foundation, Sophia spent eight years managing the communication portfolio for Absa Group’s technology division, from internal communication and employee engagement to group-wide messaging and external tech media. This included spearheading the tech team’s unique risk gamification campaign; its award-winning transition from physical to virtual eventing; and the planning of its first virtual campus environment.

Preceding this, Sophia spent 13 years as an account director at a niche creative agency in Johannesburg, managing end-to-end creative communication delivery for a large portfolio of blue chip clients. Her projects cut across a broad range of writing, design and content management specialities, delivered through a combination of traditional print, electronic, in-person and virtual reality channels, and have garnered global recognition over the past two decades.

She has been a member of the worldwide evaluation panel for the IABC Gold Quill communication awards since 2010, and was part of the team that developed the accreditation exams for the Global Communication Certification Council (GCCC).

At heart, however, she is still the journalism graduate who loves the smell of freshly printed newspapers, the look of beautifully written words, and the passion of people who believe good communication changes the world.