Kathleen Goh will be honoured with the Individual Achievement SABRE Award on 15 September 2021, at the Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards.

Kathleen Goh is Asia communications director at AstraZeneca, a role in which she has spent seven years. 

No one would call that an easy remit even before the pandemic, but since Covid-19 hit it has become a once in a lifetime assignment for Goh, who has also taken on communications responsibility for the round-the-clock project of managing AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine rollout in Asia. 

That programme has placed AstraZeneca firmly in the media and regulatory spotlight, calling on Goh to help overcome a range of critical communications challenges, including hesitancy, supply, quality, rumours and false information, and adverse events. Goh has also played a key role in terms of AstraZeneca’s internal communications efforts, helping improve employee engagement and morale during a tumultuous period. 

Goh is responsible for developing, managing and executing both external and internal
communications including proactive positioning and messaging to strengthen the AstraZeneca brand, which includes the company’s innovative science, building strong
relationships with trade/ lay media and reputation management of corporate issues and crisis. Programmes she has led include Healthy Lung, and Beat the Asthma Blues, which won several PR awards in the region.

Goh has undertaken regional communications roles for the span of her career, covering Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Americas. Previously at DHL, Goh held communications and public relations roles of increasing seniority over the past decade and was located in Hong Kong and Singapore before moving to the Deutsche Post DHL HQ in Germany, where she was head of public relations and head of internal communications for DHL Express. She has clinched three external awards for her global engagement campaigns, and for the Asian tsunami crisis management.