Prisms 2018 Lifetime Achievement winner, Bridget von Holdt.

Her initiatives to mentor young people were innovative as this was not done before when Bridget first started; making her a forerunner in this type of contribution. Consequently, many former employees have said that her teaching and mentorship moulded them into the professionals they are today.

Today she remains vocal about the role of education in the development of professionals at universities and colleges and is involved at all the tertiary institutions that offer PR training to raise awareness for the profession and to provide students with skills and where possible, knowledge transfer.

SA PR expert becomes ICCO African region president

25 Nov 2016

This has extended to focusing on young black startup companies, which is on-going.

Her ultimate priority is to professionalise the PR profession. Her biggest challenge has been the profession itself. She continues to advocate for PR to be positioned at board room level and this will continue until she retires – if ever.

Comments from judges

Margi Moscardi – Prisa, Vincent Magwenya – Conversations Media, Brendan Seery – journalist at large, Louise Marsland – editor at large, Peter Mann – Meropa, David Furlonger – Business Day

Outstanding candidate. Has done an enormous amount and achieved mightily, not only in her own business but for the industry as well.

One of the most touching realisations in going through Bridget’s nomination motivation is the selfless nature of her most notable achievements. In Bridget we have a practitioner who has dedicated.

Most of her time to the improvement of the craft rather than focus on scaling up her business.

It is notable that she worked on the MAC charter and now she is focusing on mentoring young black startups, which is far more meaningful, than equity led transformation activities in ensuring real and true transformation of the industry. Prisa work is hard and demanding and carries no direct financial benefit.

Supporting 60 NGOs and charities during her career lifespan can only be translated as a true measure of using her craft as an instrument for positive change.

We know that time equals to fees in our industry, however antiquated that thinking may be to some, the reality is, you will not find a lot of us practitioners who run PR companies dedicating a chunk of our time to non-fee earning activities. Therefore, the activism around education in PR, working with tertiary institutions is highly applauded, due to the central importance of education in sustaining the industry into the future.

One can only be envious of the opportunity that Bridget has grabbed with both hands in doing nation building work, through the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the CEO Sleep Out.