Lisa Cox - Communications Professional of the Year

Company:  Lisa Cox
Entry Submitted By:  The Audacious Agency
Company Description:   Lisa Cox’s business positions her as a freelance writer. Her purpose is to challenge and change the stereotypical representations of disability in mainstream popular culture, such as the media, marketing and advertising industries.
Nomination Category:  Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Categories
Nomination Sub Category:  Communications Professional of the Year

Nomination Title:  Lisa Cox, Author, Speaker, Consultant

Lisa Cox’s business positions her as a freelance writer. Her purpose is to challenge and change the stereotypical representations of disability in mainstream popular culture, such as the media, marketing and advertising industries. These powerful industries shape social attitudes and have the ability to improve the public’s understanding of disability. In turn, this creates more opportunities for employment, better healthcare plus improved standards of living and social engagement for people with disabilities.

The history of Lisa’s work is a combination of circumstances over nearly 2 decades. Lisa had 2 university degrees and was a writer in advertising agencies when she acquired multiple disabilities. Since then, Lisa has uniquely fused her professional background and personal experiences to positively impact the lives of millions with her work. Lisa operates by collaborating with brands and businesses that share her vision. You could almost say that Lisa acts as a bridge between the disability community and parts of the business sector. Lisa is one of the only people successfully implementing this style of advocacy that is getting results. She contributes to national and international publications worldwide (like the Huff Post, NBC, FOX, CBS and The Sydney Morning Herald).

Lisa has successfully educated and collaborated with national and international brands or businesses to bring about change. Particularly when many before Lisa have been unsuccessful (or less so).  The slow, persistent effort gives Lisa consistent wins along the way.

Some of the most notable platforms she has featured on include;
-Beautiful Minds - Mental Health presenter (ongoing to teenage girls)
-TEDx pitch on stage (visibility for disability was chosen)
-First Responders Wellbeing Summit (guest presented about mental health).
-Published on AdNews, FOX, NBC, CBS, Mumbrella and others. 
-Ogilvy PR (educating staff about D&I in the content they create)
-Standard & Poors (educating staff about D&I)
-Ongoing collaboration with Ford Australia and their media agency
-Australian Fashion Week (disability consultant)

She has always joined conversations on notable podcasts;
-Drive - Future Women
-Women’s Agenda - Leadership Lessons
-Selfish Darling
-Poductivity
-Grow Bold With Disability
-Michael Fritz
-FORTY
-Too Peas podcast
-Claim Your Confidence
-Carers Queensland (NDIS)

Lisa also became and continued to be on multiple Boards and committees:
-Queensland Health Quality and Safety Board member (PIP Collaborative) as a Consumer Representative doing significant amount of work with the health facilities as both a disability advocate and a communications specialist assisting them with material for patients.

-Just Sociale -  Board of Directors. This organisation’s purpose is aimed at protecting human rights online.
-Member of the national organisation, Media Diversity Australia as a Disability Affairs Officer
-Member of the Queensland Health Steering Committee for the new communications plan,  as the disability consultant.

Lisa’s strong point of difference is she’s not just challenging the current status quo, but also using her platform to influence real change. Rather uniquely, Lisa is not advocating with unhelpful anger. Instead, she chooses to collaborate and educate. The result of Lisa’s powerful message hitting home is profoundly different from other speakers/authors in her field; seeing people with disabilities integrated as normal members of society, in a personal and professional realm.  Lisa has a loyal following across social media (over 100K), allowing her to share her messages. Many elements within the media have shown disinterest in featuring this kind of content. In order to engage major platforms, Lisa Cox has managed to disarm the fear and pity response. It’s something that is rarely if ever, achieved by others in the disability advocacy space. Landing an opportunity to present a TedX pitch (following an application process) is also noteworthy. In fact, becoming a familiar face and voice in the media is in itself a major achievement (considering Lisa’s life-threatening traumas), one that many people in Lisa’s position have not successfully done.

Disability is shrouded in misconceptions for many reasons, but one of them is because it’s an uncomfortable topic for many people. 

Most people don’t hear about it and remain misinformed. This makes it a difficult topic to feature because a great deal of fear and pity on this topic. When you consider how challenging it is to address your own biases, bypassing an entire society’s, is an achievement.

The attached support doc gives you an insight into the journey Lisa has traveled to share her unique take on messaging around disabilities and inclusion.  It showcases her story of being a young professional in advertising to the virus that attacked her body, leaving her with significant disabilities. While she has not been able to return to fulltime work, she uses her knowledge of advertising and media, and business nous to advocate for people with disabilities, to change how they are represented in advertising and popular culture. 

www.lisacox.co
https://www.ragtrader.com.au/news/australian-brands-are-ignoring-20-of-the-population
https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/why-lisa-cox-has-dedicated-her-life-to-bringing-visibility-to-people-with-disabilities/
https://www.adnews.com.au/news/media-diversity-australia-disability-affairs-officer-lisa-cox-businesses-can-t-afford-to-ignore-this