biography
Chris Freimond has worked as a public relations consultant in Vancouver since 1995.
Before establishing his own company, Chris was Vice President for British Columbia of Hill & Knowlton, a global full service public and government relations firm. Prior to that, he was a Senior Counsellor for more than seven years with James Hoggan and Associates, one of Western Canada’s leading independent public relations agencies.
His clients over the past decade have included firms in the forest products, mining, healthcare, technology, real estate, financial services, and government sectors.
Chris has widespread experience across the public relations spectrum. He has developed and implemented strategic communications plans, helped integrate business strategies with public relations programs, provided counsel to companies facing serious crises, managed media relations campaigns, prepared written materials for integrated corporate communications initiatives, and coached company executives for major media interviews.
Before moving to Canada in 1995, Chris was a political and business journalist in Southern Africa for 20 years. His work was published extensively in South African newspapers and magazines and in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, for which he was South African correspondent for four years. He also wrote regularly for Southern African Business Intelligence, a publication of the Financial Times of London, and occasionally for Crain’s business publications in Chicago and New York. His work has also appeared in BC Business magazine in Vancouver.
Chris has a Master of Business Administration degree in Public Relations and Communications Management from Royal Roads University in Victoria. He has also completed the Strategic Management of Investor Relations program at Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in London Ontario, and the New Managers’ Program at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business in South Africa.
Chris is Vice President of the B.C. Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators. He is also a volunteer with Arts Umbrella, a Vancouver-based not-for-profit that provides training, education and support in visual, media, dance, music, and theatre arts for more than 30,000 children each year, with Vancouver’s InspireHealth, which provides care and support for cancer patients and their families, with the Communications Committee of the Lower Mainland Region of the Canadian Red Cross, and with the Vancouver YWCA’s mentorship program.
Chris lives with his wife Kathleen in North Vancouver.