Communicating Change in Uncertain Times

Fergal is Founder and CEO of VisibleThread. His mission is to make business communications clearer. Fergal believes that clear communication is a human right. Too often complexity creeps into human interaction and increases friction, both internally and externally. This drives down brand trust, increases operational cost, and lowers employee morale. He has helped large organizations like Airbus, SunLife Insurance, and the Australian Government use metrics and technology to help ditch the jargon, and speak with a human voice.

Ashley Bush is Southwire’s Director of Communications and Giving Back. Ashley began her career at Southwire in 2010 and has held a variety of responsibilities over the last decade including employee communications, visual production, strategic planning, executive communications, crisis communication, brand management, media relations and community relations. In her current role, she leads Southwire’s Communications and Giving Back team and, since January of 2020, has served as the communication liaison for the company’s COVID-19 response team.

Amanda Minto is the director of HR communications for Technology, Product, Xperience at Comcast, where she uses strategic communications to drive the employee experience and support the employee value proposition. Believing that transparency is best, Amanda has extensive experience with crisis and issues management dealing with more than 100 reductions in force and reorgs, site closures/moves, product sunsets, employee accidents and facility incident preparedness, and most recently COVID-19 response and Return to Office planning. In her current role, she leads employee communications related to all things HR including organization culture, talent and career programs, People Leader strategy and executive communications. Amanda lives outside of Philadelphia with her wife, two kids and two dogs.

Justin Joffe is the Manager of Strategic Programming at Ragan Communications. At Ragan, Joffe produces content and conference, webinar and workshop agendas including the company's annual Social Media Conference at Disney World. He currently contributes articles, including the publication's Daily Scoop. Joffe is also a freelance journalist and communications writer specializing in the arts and culture, media and technology, and ad tech beats. Before joining the Ragan team, Joffe worked for Muck Rack, PR News, and The Observer. Additionally, his writing has appeared in several publications including Vulture, Newsweek, Vice, Relix, Flaunt, and many more. You can find him on Twitter @joffaloff.