Business News of Thursday, 18 April 2013
Source: Joy Online
Media and Public Relations Manager of the UT Group, Sophia Lissah was adjudged the Most Promising Public Relations Practitioner at the 40th Anniversary Presidential Ball of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR), Ghana.
The occasion also marked the maiden IPR Ghana Awards, during which two competitive awards were given to deserving winners and a number of honorary awards were also presented.
Sophia Lissah’s award was one of the two competitive awards; the other one being the PR Personality of the Year, which was won by Mr. Kojo Yankah, a seasoned PR practitioner, President of Africa University Colleged of Communications (AUCC), and a visiting professor at Ohio University in the US.
Sophia’s award was in recognition of her years of “sterling performance” since 2006 when she was appointed as the pioneer Corporate Affairs and Marketing Manager of the then Unique Trust Financial Services, which is now UT Holdings.
She joined UT at a time when the company had no public relations and corporate affairs department, but through her instrumentality the company now has a fully fledged Corporate Affairs and Marketing Department with a Group Head, Rami Baitie.
As the Media and Public Relations Manager of UT, Sophia has been responsible for managing the reputation and image of the company, building goodwill and good community relations through impactful media relations, public relations and Corporate Social Responsibility activities in the communities.
Sophia has, over the years, projected the image of UT to win so many awards, making UT arguably one of the most decorated companies in Ghana.
She also led the media campaign for the UT Corporate Identity Change and Initial Public Offer under very stressful condition, and made structured Corporate Social Responsibility particularly Financial Literacy Programmes an integral part of UT’s operations.
Sophia brokered a three year partnership with GIZ Ghana, through its employee wellbeing programme. Through that partnership, the company now organizes programmes that reach out to communities and empower them.
UT’s Annual Pledge Pink, Breast Cancer Campaign in the month of October, financial literacy clinics and workshops in various markets accompanied with health screening and other voluntary and philanthropic donations to a number of institutions are just a few examples of the benefits from UT’s relations with GTZ.
Prior to moving to UT, Sophia worked with Ghana News Agency as a reporter for six years, from 1995 to 2001, and moved to the British High Commission as Website Editor for another five years.
Sophia is a Chartered Marketer with a Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute Marketing, UK. She also holds a BA (Hons), Sociology and Psychology from the University of Ghana, Legon, and a Diploma in Journalism from the Ghana Institute of Journalism among other professional certificates.
She is a member of the IPR Ghana, Africa Public Relations Association (APRA), International Public Relations Association (IPRA), Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) and the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG).
She dedicated her award to her “most trusted partners and friends in the media as well as my PR team and the entire UT Group”.