Philippa founded Honner Media in Sydney in 1997 in a bid to provide targeted PR for the investment, superannuation and financial services sector.  The idea for the business came during Philippa's time working as editor of Super Review magazine in the mid 1990s, where she spoke daily with the spectrum of Australia's investment managers and superannuation industry leaders.

Honner Media's founding clients were two global investment leaders: State Street and Russell Investments.

Philippa brings more than 15 years' experience in financial PR, communications and journalism – as well as strong industry and press networks.  Prior to establishing Honner Media, Philippa worked as a financial journalist in both Sydney and London. She also spent two years with one of the UK’s leading corporate and financial PR agencies, Fishburn Hedges (part of the Omnicom Group) where she worked across a range of accounts including PricewaterhouseCoopers and British Telecom.  Philippa has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney.

Yolanda is Honner Media’s general manager and brings sound knowledge of financial markets and strategic communications ability.

Yolanda's background is in corporate affairs, communications and marketing in the financial services sector having most recently worked at Insurance Australia Group. Prior to IAG Yolanda spent three years with Macquarie Bank's Real Estate Capital division and was responsible for communications across Macquarie's listed and retail unlisted property trusts and funds. This role encompassed strategic positioning, media relations, equity raising marketing campaigns, corporate action communications, annual report production and issues management. During the time she has worked with Honner Media she has worked on a range of projects including the media launch and ongoing profiling of the Australian Securitisation Forum’s policy platform, the launch of Macquarie’s MQ Gateway Series and the Institute of Actuaries’ policy campaigns.

Yolanda has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney with a major in finance, economics and marketing, a Diploma Financial Planning 1 & 3, and has commenced her Masters in Public Policy.  Yolanda is currently on maternity leave, returning in the second half of 2012. 

Paul Cheal is the Acting General Manager at Honner Media and also drives our social media capabilities. Joining Honner Media in 2011, Paul brings more than 8 years’ communications experience working as a journalist and PR agency practitioner. As Acting General Manager Paul oversees all Honner Media client relationships and drives the agency’s day to day operations. In addition to a deep understanding of the Australian financial services, pensions and investment landscape, Paul drives strategy and planning for clients as well as providing senior advice around issues and crisis management. Paul also oversees Honner Media’s social media offering, working with clients to understand the new media environment and how they can leverage social media platforms to engage with broad stakeholder groups. As a former journalist, Paul gives clients access to longstanding relationships across both trade and mainstream media.

Prior to joining Honner Media Paul spent four years working with a boutique financial services PR firm. Clients Paul has worked with over the past five years include: Vanguard, The Australian Financial Planning Association (FPA), the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australian (ASFA) and JP Morgan.

Susie Lambert is an account director at Honner Media and leads teams for some of Honner Media’s most complex clients. Prior to joining Honner Media Susie was a senior account manager with Lansons Communications – one of the UK’s largest independent public relations and public affairs consultancies.

Susie brings five years experience working across major financial brands including Fidelity, Alliance and Leicester bank, SG Hambros, retail stockbroker The Share Centre and The Royal Bank of Scotland. Prior to Lansons, Susie spent two years with Citigate Dewe Rogerson – a leading international consultancy specialising in financial and corporate communications.  Susie holds a BA Hons German and Italian 2:1 from the University of Lancaster. In 2008 Susie successfully completed the London marathon.

Paul Ham is Honner Media's dedicated media trainer and also provides senior advice on issues and crisis management. He is a financial and business journalist with 20 years' experience working in Australia and London. Paul works part time for Honner Media. He is also presently the Australia correspondent for the London-based Sunday Times, of which he was investment editor for five years in the 1990s. He has written regularly for The Bulletin, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and, in London, as an editor with the Financial Times Group's magazines. A published author (his book Kokoda was published by HarperCollins in November 2004 and Vietnam in 2008), Paul has a strong interest in 20th century history and is working on several books.

He is an experienced media consultant and speech writer, and has an MSc (Econ) from the London School of Economics.

Former financial journalist Alexandra Cain is an account manager at Honner Media. Alexandra brings more than 9 years experience working in financial journalism and PR in both Australia and the UK. She joins Honner Media from Mergermarket - a division of the Financial Times Group comprising a group of online newswires covering M&A and corporate events for investors, hedge funds, banks, law firms and other members of the financial community.

During 2006-2009 Alex was a senior reporter and then assistant editor of Dealreporter Europe in London, where she wrote news and feature articles on large cap M&A deal situations as well as contributing stories to the Financial Times website. More recently she spent time as a senior reporter with Mergermarket Australia where she wrote stories on large listed and private companies' corporate strategies and M&A plans for the expanding Asia-Pacific news service. Originally from Sydney, Alexandra holds a Bachelor of Arts – Media & Communication from Macquarie University.

Irina Starkova is an account manager at Honner Media. Irina was previously based in London working in external communications at Nomura – a leading financial services group and Asian-based investment bank employing 27,000 staff worldwide. In this role Irina focused on promoting Nomura's equity and fixed income research franchise which grew to 720 researchers following the bank's acquisition of Lehman Brothers' European businesses in 2008. Whilst at Nomura, Irina was involved in driving a media campaign around Nomura's CSR initiatives which included promoting Nomura's new charity partnerships and existing community engagement programmes which it inherited from Lehman Brothers.

Prior to this Irina was an account executive at Lansons Communications – one of the UK's largest independent public relations and public affairs consultancies where she worked across several financial accounts including Allianz GI, RCM and FirstRand bank. Irina has also worked at Edelman PR where she focused on financial and corporate clients.

Irina holds a BA in Philosophy 2:1 from the University College London. Irina speaks fluent Russian and is also a keen painter having studied at Sergey Andriyaka's fine arts school in Moscow.

Rachel Caton is a senior account executive at Honner Media.  She brings a strong interest in the financial services and corporate sector and drives a broad range of account activity across a variety of busy Honner Media accounts including Russell, Challenger and AIA Australia.  Rachel brings strong discipline to managing multi-faceted events and campaigns, and handles every client challenge with the utmost tact and aplomb.  Rachel holds a Bachelor of Business majoring in Public Relations with Distinction from Queensland University of Technology and is a 2011 Level I candidate in the CFA Program.   In her spare time Rachel is an active member of the Sydney City Rotaract Club.  

Candice Sng is an account executive at Honner Media. Candice brings with her a background in tax accounting for financial services clients from her time at Ernst & Young and working in corporate tax law at Blake Dawson. Candice is keen to bring her technical skills and understanding of the financial services industry to support the Honner Media account management teams. In her role as account executive Candice assists with event management, media monitoring and analysis and other core client account management duties. Candice holds a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Finance and a Bachelor of Laws with Honours from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from the NSW College of Law.