Alistair Nicholas has more than 25 years’ experience in crisis management communications, crisis planning, and crisis training covering Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, China and the United States. Alistair has written crisis communications manuals and crisis management plans for major multinational corporations and government agencies and provided crisis training programs to them. He has counselled many organisations during their responses to crises, including acting as an official spokesperson for organisations during live crisis situations.

Alistair has worked on crises ranging from accidental deaths and injuries through to pharmaceutical and consumer product market recalls, fraud and embezzlement, and government corruption cases. He has provided communication counsel and support during media inquiries, coronial inquests, court trials, and government inquiries.

Alistair’s career of more than 30 years also includes senior roles in government, politics, diplomacy, and the media.

Alistair holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Science from the University of New South Wales and a Certificate in Executive Leadership from Cornell University. He is based in Sydney, Australia.

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Darlina Muhammad is well known worldwide for her outstanding contribution as Caregiver Manager for three tragedies, most recently Malaysia Airlines flights MH17 and MH370, where she led hundreds of caregivers in Beijing, Amsterdam and Kota Kinabalu. Darlina worked for Malaysia Airlines for 18 years where she trained cabin crew, cadet pilots, engineering trainees, external/third party training as well as staff in general. She was also an associate trainer with the Emergency Response team. In addition, Darlina headed Events for the Company under Corporate Communications, did Market Research (Qualitative), Business Administration, Risk Management & Business Continuity.

Darlina completed a BA (Hons) English Studies in University of Kent, Canterbury, UK and started her career with lecturing English and Drama to International Baccalaureate students for two years before venturing into the hospitality and media industry. Darlina was also a news presenter for several years on Traxx.fm.

Mario is a dedicated and passionate corporate public relations professional with more than 20 years of experience as Director of Corporate Communications, media spokesperson, crisis communications specialist, media relations strategist, and social media producer. Mario has held management/leadership positions with a global disaster organization, the United Way of Houston, and the Cenikor Foundation.

Mario has created and implemented international communications campaigns and secured national and international media coverage. He has successfully booked interviews with ABC News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNN International, London Times, commercial aviation trade publications in Europe and the Middle East. Mario has also positioned corporate staff as subject matter experts and booked national and international interviews related to the recovery efforts of Air France Flight 447, US Air Flight 1549 and crisis management challenges for the government of Japan after the earthquake and tsunami.

During his tenure with The United Way of Houston, Mario was a member of the Executive Management team. He analyzed the potential impact of a critical situation involving the 2001 Enron financial crisis (a major United Way corporate donor) and questionable donations to the organization. He implemented a crisis communications plan and managed a “feeding frenzy” of potentially negative national news coverage and minimized the impact to The United Way. Result: no negative news coverage with The United Ways’ involvement during the Enron crisis.

Mario‘s previous experience includes positions as a television news and radio reporter in the southeast United States. He has received awards from the Public Relations Society of America, Texas Public Relations Association, a Suncoast Television Emmy nominee, and he is FEMA Certified National Incident Management System Public Information Officer (IS-0072.a) and a member of the Public Information Officer (PIO) Network Houston/Galveston Region.

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