Hill & Knowlton

When working on Service Canada’s corporate video, I had the good fortune to be able to hire Krista Thompson from Hill & Knowlton to help manage the project. She and I connected instantly – in addition to having loads of natural talent, she was smart, resourceful, and extremely organized. In seven weeks, we wrote the storyboard, traveled with a film crew to six shoots around the country, edited and finally produced a 10-minute video.

Seven weeks? That's loads of time, isn't it? Did I mention I was working in government at the time? When you factor in the time consumed on approvals, that was quite a remarkable feat!

At any rate, a year later, Krista called and asked me to lunch. She was leaving H&K and wanted to know if I wanted to try a hand at consulting. Did I?? Are you kidding?? H&K?? So I took a leave of absence and left on assignment to lead Internal and Change Management communications at H&K. And I didn’t sleep again for the next four months…

Now I know what the life of a consultant is – I’ve been one for a long time. But I never had clients overseas who required conference calls at 3 am. I didn’t have a Blackberry buzzing beside my bed at all hours of the night, every day of the week. And I certainly didn’t have to crank out the 90-page proposals that seemed to be an almost weekly part of the job. I am immensely grateful for my time at H&K – it was a great place to be when I got the news about my APR, and the projects and people were amazing. I packed more things into my portfolio in four short months than I would have in two years in government.

Ultimately, had I been 20 years younger, I would have been in my element – but as it was, I decided to reclaim my place amongst the ranks of the public service. And I finally got a little rest.