Shaping Writing to Your Audience

Speakers

• Amr Aljowaily

  Diplomat & Strategic Advisor to the Deputy Chairperson, African Union Commission

  Ethiopia

• Leontine Vreeke

  Writer & Provincial Councillor, Provincie Zuid-Holland

  Netherlands

• Elana Aptowitzer

  Head of Speechwriting at the Department of National Defence

  Canada

• Amr Aljowaily, an international civil servant, diplomat, academic, and writer with 32 years of professional experience. He is currently the strategic advisor to the deputy chairperson of the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa. He started his career in print and broadcast journalism, before diplomatic postings took him to Belgrade, New York, Geneva, and Washington. He primarily writes on issues of multilateral diplomacy, but has also had original works of prose published in Arabic, English, and Serbian.

• Leontine Vreeke, a politician in the Provincie Zuid-Holland, the Netherlands. Her areas of responsibility as a committee member include Culture and Heritage, Human Capital, Digitalization and Innovation, amongst others. She is also a Senior Consultant Government with a focus on the Social Domain next to being a freelance journalist and creative consultant and has worked on developing new television formats to tap into audience interests. In her spare time she writes poetry, sings, and performs.

• Elana Aptowitzer, Head of Speechwriting at Canada’s Department of National Defence. She and her team of speechwriters write between 250 and 360 speeches per year for the Minister, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and other political and military leaders. She is the Founder and Chair of the Government of Canada's Speechwriters' Community of Practice and recently served as the Federal Public Servant In-Residence at Carleton University, where she developed and taught a professional speechwriting course. Elana graduated from McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, with an Honours Bachelors of Arts in Political Science and Sociology. She earned a Masters in Strategic Public Communications from American University in Washington, DC.