Wednesday 5th August 2026 @ 7:30am - 9:00am
Overview
Join us for our 2026 entry in the Learn from a Fellow series, featuring two of Canterbury’s most experienced practitioners and PRINZ Fellows.
Internal communications is often expected to deliver more with less, balance strategic advice with day-to-day delivery, and engage increasingly diverse workforces. But how can insights help communicators move beyond tactics and make better decisions about where to focus their effort?
Hear from local PRINZ Fellows Michele Hider and Janet Wright as they share real-world internal communications examples, the insights that helped shape their approach and how they evaluated their success.
We’ll hear about engaging a diverse and dispersed workforce of more than 3,000 employees, and a PRINZ award-winning campaign that used research and behavioural insights to drive engagement, improve audit readiness and deliver measurable results.
Both Michele and Janet will reflect on key learnings from these projects and their extensive careers, offering practical advice for practitioners looking to deliver greater impact through internal communications.
There will also be plenty of time for discussion, questions and sharing experiences from your own workplace.
Numbers are limited to encourage an open and interactive discussion, so reserve your ticket now.
Black Betty opens at 7.30am and we’ll begin at 7.45am, giving you plenty of time to grab a coffee and something from the cabinet before we start.
This is the fourth PRINZ Southern event in our 2026 programme and continues our annual theme of insights for impact. Keep an eye out for more upcoming events and opportunities to connect with your local network of communications practitioners.
Your Fellows are..
Michele Hider (APR FPRINZ)
Director, Priority Communications
Michele started award-winning agency Priority Communications in 2013. As well as supporting a wide variety of businesses and organisations with their PR and marketing, she has worked as a senior advisor to local government and government agencies, including the Ministry of Health, Housing New Zealand, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and Christchurch City Council. For several years, she was Communications Manager for the Canterbury District Health Board – the South Island’s largest employer.
“With a habit of being in the wrong place at the right time”, Michele has accumulated a vast amount of crisis communications experience and is highly sought after for her crisis and issues management expertise. In 2023, Priority Communications was the silver award winner for the best small to medium consultancy in the country.
Michele has a Master of Management (Communication) with distinction, is a Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand, has international accreditation in Public Relations (APR) and is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Canterbury.
Janet Wright (APR FPRINZ)
Group Manager Communications and Sustainability, ANZCO Foods
ANZCO foods is one of New Zealand’s largest exporters. Janet has spent the past 13 years communicating with everyone from processing-floor employees and farmers to senior leaders and external stakeholders. Before joining ANZCO Foods, Janet worked in stakeholder engagement at Meridian Energy and held communications manager roles at Ravensdown and Ngāi Tahu. She has also run her own communications consultancy and, early in her career, honed her communications skills at Telecom (now Spark).
