Marianne Sterner has worked as plain language consultant at Sveriges Riksbank, the central bank of Sweden, for fourteen years. She is part of the strategy group within the Communications Division, which has the task of planning the Riksbank’s communication and adapting it to its various target groups. Marianne has a combined BA degree in Swedish and French and has 35 years of experience as a freelance plain language consultant, mainly in the public sector.

Tony Morrison, Director of Communications at Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), is now a veteran and award-winning central bank communicator with nearly 20 years of central banking experience that began in the latter part of the Greenspan era.

His recruitment by BOJ in 2001 interrupted a near-seven year stint as a multiple award- winning investigative journalist who specialized in covering crime, politics, business and the economy in general and tourism in particular. The competitive advantage that he brought to tourism reporting, of understanding the local industry and knowing the major players, evolved from the fact that he became a journalist (by accident) after leaving a job as a resort entertainment manager after an intensive six-year career in tourism.

Bank of Jamaica’s communication output has slowly but steadily and significantly increased and improved on his watch because of his work behind the scenes to push the envelope, and his strategic advice has at critical stages helped successfully guide Jamaica through its current highly acclaimed but difficult economic reform programme. His communication advice guided two successive governments (in 2010 and 2013) through the potential minefields of two debt exchange programmes, and he piloted the smooth 2017 introduction of BOJ’s ongoing FX market reform programme. 

In 2018, however, he was forced into the spotlight as a thought leader by becoming an ‘overnight sensation’ in central banking and wider circles. His revolutionary, ground-breaking, and reggae music-infused communication campaign to sensitize the Jamaican population to BOJ’s policy switch to formal inflation targeting is like nothing ever seen before in central banking circles, and has taken the world by storm, producing viral videos and attracting coverage from over 30 international media houses plus the public commendation of the IMF, IDB, and a plethora of fellow central bank communicators, central bankers in general, economists, business journalists, local and international politicians, and the wider public.

What is lesser known is that simultaneously, he is also the full-time personality and strategist behind BOJ’s critically acclaimed and highly engaging Twitter account, which in just over two years of existence has rapidly and emphatically earned the undisputed status of the best central bank Twitter account in the world, and earned BOJ the title of ‘coolest central bank in the world.’ There are no prizes for guessing that he is also the mad genius behind BOJ’s new virtual spokesperson, the James Bond inspired/BOJ logo derived ‘Secret Agent Croc. O. Doyle,’ who has a licence to target (what else?) inflation!  

Mr. Morrison is no stranger to Central Banking Publications, as, in addition to his communication programme attracting its coverage on several occasions and earning BOJ the award for best communications initiative for 2019, he was a course attendee in 2002, course chairman in 2003, and wrote the article “How a central bank should talk” for Central Banking Quarterly Journal also in 2003.

Mike Hannah has been a regular presenter and commentator in communications and governance for Central Banking. Formerly Head of Communications and Board Secretary at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, he provides consultancy, training and mentoring (including online delivery) in communications practice and management, stakeholder engagement, publications editing, and governance support.

Julie Poulin is a Stakeholder Relations analyst at the Bank of Canada, responsible for designing, implementing and evaluating outreach and engagement activities with external audiences. She has worked in various areas of the Bank’s Communications department for nearly 10 years, providing strategic advice and developing materials, including digital media and promotional products, for Bank audiences.

Marek Petruš is an external relations consultant with deep expertise in financial and economic policy communications. He has worked closely with top monetary policymakers as a strategic advisor to governors in the Czech Republic as well as more than a dozen low-to-middle income developing countries. He has been affiliated with the International Monetary Fund as a short-term expert for central bank communications, advising central banks across Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa to make their policies more transparent and on modernising their communications. His expertise and experience stems from an assignment as Director of Communications and later chancellor at the Czech National Bank (CNB), preceded by a career with the world’s leading news media companies, including Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. During his tenure, the Czech central bank upgraded its policy communications and brought its transparency and communication toolkit into line with global best practices. These advances helped solidify the CNB’s standing as one of the world's most transparent and best communicating central banks.

Following the graduation IT College and the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Mirela Roman joined the Monetary Policy Department of the National Bank of Romania for almost three years up to 1994 when switched to gain almost 12 years of valuable experience as an economics correspondent at Reuters News Agency, working in Bucharest, London, Prague, Warsaw or Copenhagen. In 2005 she rejoined NBR as an Adviser to the Governor and has run a newly created Communication Department for eight years before taking a new challenge: the strategy path. Economic analysis, news coverage, project development and team coordination defined her business for years, while her focus was growing with memberships in the local Foreign Press Association, the Romanian-Chinese Association, the Club of Rome Romanian arm, Ethics Board of the ICCO-Affiliated Romanian Association of Public Relations as well as a lecturer in Winsor or Cambridge training series by Central Banking Publications for a decade now.