Kenya: Media training and coaching for the CEOs of three key business membership organisations in the Kenyan horticultural sector

COLEAD recently held a media training session and coaching for CEO’s and communication leads of three business membership organisations such as Kenya Flower Council (KFC); Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK) and Fresh Produce Consortium of Kenya (FPCK). This training comes against a background of increased demand for effective communication for stakeholder engagement, nationally, regionally, and globally. Indeed, in the past few years, communication has become a major issue for all the horticulture stakeholders at the national and international levels as they request for more information related to the entire supply chain.

The objectives of this mission was to strengthen the public relations and communication skills of the CEOs with a specific emphasis on interactions with media and specifically radio and video sessions. It consisted of: (1) a training component to support the CEOs and their communication managers to become more effective communicators with the media. (2) personal coaching component to improve public speaking, crisis management and communication skills.

The training and coaching programme was highly interactive and practical. The delegates were exposed to live media interview sessions where various media interview scenarios were simulated, recorded on video camera, and reviewed. These practical sessions attracted a lot of interest and provided the best learning opportunity for the CEOs and the communication managers. The participants greatly appreciated the high-level training and the skills and knowledge gained from this training and coaching session and reiterated that the session will undoubtedly improve their work and help them achieve their organizational goals more effectively.