Gwen Watkins

Gwen Watkins started a PR consultancy in September 1988 offering the full gamut of PR services from media liaison, marketing positioning, branding, external and internal communication strategies to event planning.

She has built as solid reputation as a communications expert, as part of her business is that of a freelance journalist for Business Report, The Star, Sowetan, Sunday Times, Enterprise, Succeed and as editor of other specialist magazines.

Gwen has lectured in Consumer Behaviour; Marketing Information Systems; Creative Strategy; and Advertising Agency Management; for Diploma students of the Institute of Marketing Management.

She was Damelin Education Group's national subject head of Conference & Event Management from 2004-2005 and lectured Advanced Office Management; Business Entrepreneurship; Conference & Meetings Planning; Event Management & Special Event Management; Exhibition Management; Risk Management; Sales & Communication; Tourism Marketing; and Computer Skills for both the Diploma and Certificate courses since 1999. Gwen lectured on journalism for Diploma students at Damelin

Gwen lectured part-time on Event Planning and Project Management at Tshwane University of Technology from February 2006 - November 2007.

In May 2006, Gwen addressed Venue chapters of Southern African Association for the Conference Industry (SAACI) in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Johannesburg on "Managing Risk at Venues" and the Cape Town Chapter meeting of EXSA on "Management risk at exhibitions" in October 2006. She addressed the SAACI's national conferences in 2006 and 2007.

Gwen has been a chair at the conference "Managing Disabilities in the Workplace" on behalf of IQ-Xptiz (Pty) Limited and a chair at the "South African Labour Law Practice" workshop for Marcus Evens.

Gwen recently passed the Convention Industry Council's (CIC) international exam and is now a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP).

Gwen is a member of the Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA), Women in Finance (WIF) and SAACI (Southern African Association for the Conference Industry).

Gwen is a qualified NLP Practitioner (a communications methodology) and completed her Practitioner and Master Practitioner courses under the auspices of the Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Southern Institute in Florida USA.

In 2004, Gwen completed the Coaching Genius training through the International Society of Neuro-Semantics and X-Sim - Managing by Project through X-Pert Training Academy. She holds various diplomas and certificates in public relations, marketing and sales. She has her Train-the-Trainer course with distinction from Damelin.

As part of her firm's social responsibility programme, Gwen assists emerging small companies with their marketing needs and has participated in three mentoring programmes - NBI/McKinsey, Raizcorp and Umsobomvu. Her article entitled 'Promoting your company' - a guide to writing press releases for SMEs is published by SEDA http://www.seda.org.za/content.asp?subID=762