Abigail Brown is a recognized PR and marketing communication specialist with over 20 years of experience. Abigail has held director and senior leadership positions for hospital foundations and non-profit organizations, such as Ovarian Cancer Canada, Plan International Canada, Community Living Ontario, and United Way, and in the highly regulated banking industry, where Abigail worked as a senior manager at Scotiabank. Abigail has contributed to the organizations’ strategic planning processes in her professional roles. She has successfully led marketing and public engagement awareness activities, nurtured existing donors, and attracted new supporters and customers. Currently, she is the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA).
Abigail is a storyteller at heart and by profession. As far back as Abigail can remember, she loved the challenge of immersing herself in a subject area. Through storyboarding, she determines how best to tell the story, bringing the narrative to fruition and then evaluating the impact that a well-placed story has on its target audience. These audiences include employees, current and prospective clients, customers, funders, or partners – they all need to know and understand the brand and why it’s relevant. Abigail believes effective communications engage audiences through well-told stories that pull their audiences beyond involvement to becoming empowered and collaborating partners.
Abigail loves the business of communications and believes, irrespective of one’s tenure, there is always a better way to tell a brand’s raison d’être. That’s where membership in IABC/Toronto is invaluable. Abigail has compelling reasons for joining IABC/Toronto. IABC/Toronto provides workshops on the latest business insights, links to career opportunities, and access to networks and communities of practices that offer support when one faces their own communication challenges and needs help. More importantly, IABC is an esteemed and respected association for communications experts. It’s highly regarded by communications professionals and employers who want to hire them.
As for the future of communication, Abigail believes it’s about the communicator staying relevant and offering value in a vast and ever-changing landscape. While the message rules, moving to message forward heavily depends on selecting the best channels, telling stories in a way that meets people where they’re at and that are in step with changing platforms and technologies (i.e., artificial intelligence).
What’s Abigail’s favourite part of the job? That’s easy – the team and connecting to the audience. On a typical day, Abigail divides her talents between leading her team and writing communications plans for campaigns and events. Team meetings are held to discuss communication approaches or to scope out digital content planning. Newsletter planning and production, writing copy, reviewing copy, approving copy and, occasionally, managing a media interview are regular activities. Not-so-typical tasks include organizing team photo shoots for an annual report. That’s fun!
Abigail Brown holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English and Sociology from the University of Toronto. Abigail believes strongly in giving back to the community through volunteering. She has previously volunteered for local charities, including youth and women’s shelters, and most recently in children’s programs and fundraising events for a church in midtown Toronto.
Abigail treasures her years of learning at the University of Toronto and is a proud Victoria College alum and a member of the Alumni of Victoria College Executive Committee. At IABC/Toronto, Abigail is currently slated to join the Board in June 2023 as VP, Member Experience and has volunteered in various capacities with IABC/Toronto.
In Abigail’s spare time, she enjoys running, wine, Agatha Christie novels, and the company of her very active kittens, Midnight Darling and Chazak.