Keele Management School News
06
Vice President of Washington Public Relations
company lectures KMS Marketing students
In 1988 Adam Konowe left the
States to spend a ‘study abroad
year’ at Keele as part of his
History, Politics and International
Relations degree. In the intervening
years Adam has completed his
undergraduate and Master’s degrees,
spent seven years as a TV Producer
and Director and thirteen years in
advertising and PR. Today he is the
Vice President of Public Relations at
Sullivan Higdon & Sink, a PR agency
in Washington DC specialising in
defence and aerospace. He also
teaches at the American University
in Washington DC.
Despite such a busy professional life,
as a keen supporter of Keele, Adam
also finds time to be Director of the
‘Keele in the USA Foundation Inc.’
supporting the Keele alumni network
in the USA.
Adam contacted Keele’s alumni
office earlier this year offering
to make a detour to Keele on his
planned business trip to the UK.
KMS jumped at the chance for our
students to benefit from his expertise
in marketing and PR and Senior
Marketing Lecturer, Emma Surman
invited him to present a session on the
Marketing & Globalisation module.
Marketing students helping mum to help others
KMS Marketing students are learning first-hand the value of marketing communications
by working on a project to help mothers of Down’s syndrome babies.
The project was started by Angie
who, when she had her little boy,
soon discovered that there was
an absence of information about
what it is like to be the mum of a
child born with Down’s syndrome.
Realising how helpful it would be for
new mums like herself to hear from
other mums, she decided to write
a book about her own experience,
which she called ‘Looking Up’.
In her home county of Cornwall,
Angie’s health worker was able to
help her to share her book with
others through support groups
and identifying individuals who
would benefit. Wanting to extend
this help to other parts of the
UK, Angie approached the NHS
for funding but with no success.
At this point, Marketing Lecturer,
Jamie Bailey suggested that KMS
Marketing students might be able
to help through the Digital and
Marketing Communications module.
Students on this module are now
planning to examine how marketing
communications could be used to
raise awareness of Angie’s book
throughout Staffordshire. This
is especially helpful as there is
no support network for mums in
Staffordshire at the moment.
The project is in its very early stages,
but plans are afoot for the students
to prepare a filmed presentation
and possibly work with Keele’s
Medical School to hopefully help to
secure some funding and highlight
awareness of the project. We hope
to be able to tell you more in our
next magazine.