Archive | IIAR AR Professional Interview

We have the privilege today to interview this year’s IIAR AR Professional 2018 and heading the  IIAR AR Team of the Year 2018, Amal Nichols (@nicholsamal, LinkedIn),Director, Global Analyst Relations at Cisco. She must be doing something right!

1. What’s been your career path to becoming an AR pro?

Like many in our field, I started out in Public Relations.During college, I worked at a few San Francisco Bay Area-based television stations and later joined a public relations agency focused on the high tech industry. At the time, there were no dedicated AR functions. PR roles actually included managing relationships with both press and analysts. I also spent a year in Paris working on pan-European PR programs with sister agencies in the UK and Germany. From there I worked on the corporate side at a small networking company. I then decided to start my own PR consulting firm. That’s when the industry was growing exponentially and there were lots of startups looking for help and many mature companies in need of extra support. It gave me a great deal of flexibility, a nice mix of clients and a wide breadth of experience. Cisco hired me as a consultant and after two years, offered me a full time position. That was 12 years ago! Cisco was one of the first companies I knew of that had a dedicated AR function. It was exciting to see the strategic value that AR brought to a business and the respect the function had within Cisco. Continue Reading →