Vanessa is a strategic communications professional with over 25 years experience in corporate affairs, agency leadership and entrepreneurship. She is a former Chief Executive and a current Non-Executive Director.

As co-founder and former CEO of Herd MSL, Vanessa and her partners led the growth and performance for more than a decade of one of Australia’s largest and most awarded public relations agencies with 75 professional consultants. In 2017, Herd MSL was acquired by Publicis Groupe joining one of the world’s top five advertising networks.

Over her career she has advised boards and CEOs on brand and reputation and delivered integrated communication and marketing campaigns for companies that ranged from Facebook, Airbnb and Instagram to American Express, ING and Westpac to GE, Proctor & Gamble and NBN Co. She also has extensive public sector experience across state and Federal Governments.

Vanessa is the winner of B&T’s Women in Media PR Leadership Award, a Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia and an inaugural Walkley Foundation Women in Media mentor.

She is a Director of the SCEGGS Trust, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Arise Foundation and a Casual Academic at UTS Sydney’s School of Communications.

Vanessa also has a MBA from Macquarie Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Communication (Organisational Communication) from Charles Sturt University (Mitchell).