ICCO mourns Angela Oakes

The International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) today mourns the passing of Angela Oakes, the co-founder and joint president of Global Women in PR (GWPR), ICCO 2021 Hall of Fame inductee and current serving ICCO Board member, who passed away this morning following a short illness linked to her battle with cancer.

Angela had an impressive track record working with global multi-nationals on strategic brand development and integrated consumer campaigns. In the 1980s, Angela worked at several London-based PR agencies including Hill & Knowlton, Catalyst Communications and the Grayling Company, where she worked with the Grayling founder to help develop the business. This invaluable experience of seeing a successful agency being built from scratch led her to subsequently launch her own PR agency Oakes Bacot, later re-branded Treehouse PR. She was also past President of WPR UK.

Angela’s personal experience of the value of a networking organisation like WPR, at a time when she was juggling her own business with childcare responsibilities, spearheaded her decision to work with Sue Hardwick on launching Global Women in PR in 2015. She believed this to be her legacy to the global PR industry and a clear demonstration of her passion to empower the next generation of PR women to become senior leaders.

Angela led two key initiatives that contributed to GWPR’s work – the Annual Index designed to track the changes for women working in the industry and Empower – the only global cross border mentoring programme for mid-career women and just about to enter into its second year.

Angela also regularly spoke at the ICCO Global Summit and led on all ICCO’s gender equality research (as part of GWPR).

Rob Morbin, ICCO Deputy Chief Executive said: “Angela was a trailblazer, a powerful force in the campaign for gender equality and female leadership within the ICCO community.

"Together with Sue Hardwick, the dynamic duo took many ICCO board meetings and Summits by storm with their research-based vision for the global PR industry. The news of her death is deeply saddening, she will be dearly missed by all of us at ICCO.”

In a statement from the GWPR, Sue Hardwick has said: “I am deeply saddened to lose my partner and close friend of more than 20 years. We worked together as Co-Presidents to revive WPR UK some 11 years ago and having handed it onto a new President in 2015 we then turned our focus to creating a global network to champion women in our industry building on the strengths and blueprint of WPR UK . We did not know if the idea would work but with the incredible support from industry leaders, ICCO and the PRCA, we launched and now have GWPR networking groups around the world working together to drive change. I will miss my friend more than words can say but I am determined that the work Angela cared so passionately about will continue and that her legacy will not be forgotten.”

Read Full Global Women in PR’s tribute here.