Topic: Cross-Cultural Communication

Rebecca Hope

With an international track record in music performance, language teaching and public speaking coaching, Rebecca Hope speaks on topics relating to creativity for innovation, agility, cross-cultural communication, storytelling in any context, and the role of EdTech in supporting growth.

Birthed out of solving a socioeconomic problem in 2019, musical artist, linguist and speaking coach Rebecca Hope started training prospective and practicing South African English teachers to teach English online with the goal of providing a promising alternative work option in a context where unemployment is a pressing societal issue with over 50% of the country's youth unemployed. This came after Rebecca herself had been an online teacher on the Edtech platform Verbling since 2016. Her online teaching lifestyle had enabled her to pursue a passion in music, traveling internationally to write, record and perform original music as a singer and violinist. Using her story to empower other South Africans, hundreds of teachers were trained nationwide to teach conversational English lessons online, building a sustainable online teaching practice using EdTech.

As a Nelson Mandela University graduate in Applied Language Studies, Rebecca continued her research in addressing communication needs beyond language. After months of research and development with various groups in the UK, Germany, South Africa, Ethiopia, and the Netherlands in 2022 and 2023, it became clear that the existing solutions for organisations tackling speech problems lacked in many areas of quality, efficiency and scalability.

Furthering studies in Economics and Business Development at Vrije University, Rebecca's startup The English Square was awarded winner of the Amsterdam Startup Launch 2023 through a competitive program supported by Ernst & Young, Golden Egg Check Capital, and Roland Berger. Her online learning platform offers a multidisciplinary insights-driven method of speech development.

Employees and executives of Fortune 500 companies including Google, Amazon and the likes, and TEDx talkers have experienced personal and professional transformation essential for growth through Rebecca's training. Recently, Estée Lauder Companies' executive tech team took part in a 3-day live training at their Global Technology Center in Bucharest, Romania, expressing that "It was the best training ever - how speech can improve an organisation's performance" (Okem Molokwu, Director Business Analysis).

Michael J. Jordan

Michael J. Jordan is a New York-based Global Communications Specialist, International Journalist and Visiting Journalism Professor who’s lived on four continents over the past 25 years. He offers clients his unique skillset as a Communications strategist, content creator, impactful storyteller, staff trainer and in-house coach.

Jordan feels fortunate to view Global Communications – and the smart-but-skeptical foreign audience – in a way that few cross- cultural communicators do. First, through the prism of his broad background: as an American who’s also lived in Europe (Hungary and Slovakia), Africa (Lesotho), and Asia (China). Along the way, he’s branched from media, into teaching-training, then Communications.

As a Foreign Correspondent, Jordan has reported from 30 countries and covered topics ranging from the post-Communist transition in Eastern Europe; to the UN’s post-9/11 role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; as well as the failed 2014 coup-attempt in the tiny African kingdom of Lesotho – for publications like Foreign Policy magazine; French news agency AFP; Christian Science Monitor; Harvard’s Nieman Reports; South Africa’s Mail & Guardian; and others.

As an International Educator, Jordan has taught students and trained professionals on four continents – including, at some of China’s finest universities. As a Communications Consultant in Africa, he focused on topics like HIV orphans, maternal-child health and domestic violence; then in China, it was issues such as environmental pollution, worker’s rights, food waste and food safety.

In fact, he’s now privy to a foreigner’s rare “insider” view of China – the world’s second-largest economy and our emerging global superpower. Most recently, he worked for one year as News Editor, Scriptwriter and Foreign-Media Analyst at one of the world’s largest propaganda channels, the China Global Television Network (CGTN). After fleeing Beijing due to the COVID pandemic, last year he worked remotely as a Communications Strategist for one of the world’s most controversial companies: Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant.

Jordan is delighted to share his insights with any audience, along with his toolkit of Global Communication skills and strategies: The MJ Method. At its heart is his conviction that the most persuasive way to impact an audience is with humanized, message-driven, evidence-supported content.