Elizabeth Jane Hirst

Elizabeth has more than 45 years’ experience in public relations and communications, both as an in-house manager and as an external consultant, offering services in consulting and communications training to clients in a wide range of public and private sectors.

Among her previous positions have been Director of Public Relations for McGill University, Director of Public Affairs for The Montreal Children’s Hospital, Director, Communications for the McGill University Health Centre, and Vice-President of the consulting firms National Public Relations, Veritas Communications Inc., Sarrazin and Associates, as well as President of Hirst Communications.

She also served for a number of years as Academic Coordinator of the Public Relations and Communications Management (PR&CM) programs in McGill’s Centre for Continuing Education. She has retired from that position, but continues to teach in the programs, as she has for 20 years. She also develops new courses, and recently served on a work force tasked with reviewing and revamping the graduate-level programs in PR&CM.

Professionally accredited by the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) in 1985, Elizabeth has been Vice President of that society and of its associated organization, la Société des professionnels en relations publiques du Québec (SQPRP). She has won major awards from both societies for her work in PR&CM teaching, mentoring and program development, and has served on or chaired committees concerned with education, ethics and professional accreditation. In June 2004 she was named to the CPRS College of Fellows. She has been a frequent speaker at conferences, webinars and podcasts over the years.

She holds a BA in languages and linguistics from McGill and a MA in medieval studies from l’Université de Montréal.