AusAID
BBC World Service Trust
British Council
Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Radio 68H
TV Maldives
United Nations Development Programme - UNDP
United Nations Children’s Fund – UNICEF
World Health Organisation
AusAID, Indonesia
In 2006, Suzanne was hired by the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development in Aceh, funded by the Australian Government’s development agency, AusAID. The brief was to find examples of how Australian-funded projects were enabling people to turn their lives around after the tsunami. She wrote press releases and longer articles for Australian and Indonesian media.
BBC World Service Trust & UNDP, School of Broadcast Media, Indonesia
Suzanne devised and delivered courses of varying lengths (up to four weeks) in TV news skills, for the newly-founded School of Broadcast Media. Training took place both at the school in Jakarta and on-site at TV stations in Java.
The delegates came from all over Indonesia and their experience ranged from several years to complete novice.
Working in the field, Suzanne designed a blueprint to completely re-organise production staffing and newsgathering methods at one TV station and wrote an ethics policy for another.
She also acted as an on-line mentor and graded work submitted by Indonesian trainees to the BBC’s on-line learning website, ilearn.
British Council, Indonesia
Suzanne coached staff, including the communications team, in news awareness, how to spot a story and how to write media releases.
Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals, Indianapolis, USA
The pharmaceuticals corporation produces the medication to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Nearly half a million people contract this highly infectious form of TB every year. It is difficult to treat and a growing threat to global health. In 2006, Eli Lilly funded intensive media training organised jointly with the World Health Organisation’s Stop TB section. The objective was to prepare advocates for World TB Day. As Suzanne was already a regular media trainer for WHO, she was asked to devise and deliver the training at Lilly’s HQ. The delegates included doctors working in the frontline all over the world, former TB patients, Mexico’s Vice-Minister for Health and a British Liberal Democrat MP serving as his party’s Health spokesman.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Jakarta
Suzanne coached the firm’s directors to prepare them for Leadership Challenge which is an important part of their development towards becoming partners. She worked with them to improve their individual style and delivery. She also focused on the structure and content of formal presentations.
Radio 68H (Kantor Berita Radio), Jakarta
68H is a young radio station founded by leaders of the Indonesian democracy movement. It has high production and news values and its bulletins are relayed across 500 partner stations nationally and internationally.
www.kbr68h.com/Profile.htm
Suzanne devised and ran four-day courses for stringers from across Asia, reporting for the weekly English language news programme, Asia Calling. She was also an occasional broadcaster for the show.
www.asiacalling.kbr68h.com
TV Maldives
Suzanne spent a month at TV Maldives in 2003, funded jointly by the BBC, UNICEF and the Maldives government. The journalists were young and enthusiastic but operating in a non-democratic environment where government opponents faced arrest. Against this background, she devised training for editorial and technical staff in BBC news values, news judgement, writing, storytelling and film making. She introduced new techniques for outputting the live news programmes. Through workshops with all production staff (to guarantee buy-in) she set up a newsgathering and planning system. This came into its own 12 months’ later when the islands were struck by the tsunami and the station started broadcasting 24 hours a day.
UNICEF, Indonesia, Communications Officer
Suzanne organised media coverage for two national immunisation days in the emergency response to the outbreak of polio to Indonesia.
She developed key messages against a background of high refusal rates. She travelled to the high risk areas of Indonesia to brief journalists and community leaders.
She arranged press conferences for national and international media, wrote press releases and background materials. She wrote articles published by Indonesian newspapers and the UNICEF website.
She oversaw the filming of two PSAs and was the reporter on a film for an English language news bulletin on network TV.
She produced and directed two films about the polio epidemic in Indonesia for video news releases to national and international broadcasters which were also used as social mobilisation tools, and were distributed to donors.
www.unicef.org/infobycountry/indonesia_28428.html
The video footage used in Stephanie Hollyman’s report was produced and directed by Suzanne Yates in Java.
World Health Organisation, Geneva
Suzanne has conducted regular media training for doctors and epidemiologists in WHO’s STOP TB division in Geneva. She prepared them to appear on TV and radio and to cope with press conferences on the annual World TB Day. This training was subsequently funded by Eli Lilly and took place in the USA.
Testimonials
Media Training
“A remarkable course that empowered me with specific media skills.”
“Very well arranged. Pleasant and convivial atmosphere.”
“Extremely useful. Should be obligatory for leading WHO staff.”
“It was worth travelling every mile to attend this course.”
Radio & TV Consultancy
“Your ideas for reorganising the bulletins and newsgathering were put in place when we were hit by the tsunami. Suddenly we were on air 24 hours a day.” Newsroom journalist, TV Maldives
Communications
Testimonials from British Council staff:
“It was most useful to learn how to find an attractive ‘top line’ which would interest journalists in our projects.”
“I learned how to structure a story in order to produce an effective press release.”
Career Counselling & Job Interview Skills
“I tremendously enjoyed my time working with Suzanne when she was Training Manager for BBC Radio News. She is incredibly knowledgeable, well connected and knows how the industry works inside out. We spent a couple of years working together on an interview skills and career workshop which we delivered to news journalists. Suzanne’s energy, enthusiasm, knowledge and good sensible advice made it a great course.” Daniell Morrisey, Recruitment Account Manager, BBC NEWS
“Suzanne is a versatile and talented trainer and career coach. She is able to inspire her clients, yet challenge to produce results. Her flexibility and creativity, combined with a practical approach, make her a development professional I recommend without reservation.” Caroline Wright, Head, BBC Careerlink.
“I wanted to let you know that you had played a big part in giving me the self-belief and impetus to take the leap of faith and do what I really wanted. Being able to talk through “big picture” personal and professional goals with you made a real difference – they were conversations that were difficult to have with line managers, for obvious reasons. I don’t really know what the future holds, but having made a success of this venture/adventure I’m confident that whatever happens next is bound to be interesting too!” former BBC producer, now a foreign correspondent.
Image and Presentation
“I was surprised at the progress that could be made in one day, I wish I had been through this earlier in my career. The feedback was constructive and has opened my eyes to the way I need to think and prepare in the future”. PwC Director
“I really saw the difference Suzanne made in one day, the directors not
only became more polished in their presentations and thinking skills, but also enjoyed the day as well.” Human Capital Director, PwC