Sheila Roche: Using the Art of Communications To Do Good
Creative & Communications Officer, (RED)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/sheila-roche/29/a32/984
Bio:
Chief Creative & Communications Consultant, (RED). She has led communications and creative for (RED) since its inception. Her career began in the music industry where she ran U2’s management company and managed the career of PJ Harvey.
Innovating in Field of Work:
• In 2006 Sheila launched (RED) for its founders Bono and Bobby Shriver to help provide a sustainable flow of money from the private sector to fight AIDS.
• She has led all of (RED)’s major campaigns including its launch on Oprah, Bono’s guest editorship of Vanity Fair, high profile art & design auctions (collectively raising over $85 million). She has also conceived and led (RED)’s collaboration with the electronic dance community producing #1 dance albums in more than 30 countries.
• She co-produced The Lazarus Effect documentary with Spike Jonze and HBO to show the impact of (RED) and Global Fund money on the lives of people with HIV.
Impact:
• She’s played a key role in the success of (RED), which has raised over $315 million to date.
Role Model:
• She encourages the people she works with to be better, smarter and more curious in the pursuit of new and innovative ways to engage the public in the AIDS fight.
• Last year she became an adjunct professor at DePaul University, teaching a graduate course on Creative and Critical Thinking, working with the students to use those disciplines to create campaigns related to social justice.
• Sheila is a member of the Women and Global Development Forum Steering Committee at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and on the committee for Human Rights Watch, Chicago.
Reinvention / Risk / Momentum:
• Sheila’s career is a model of professional evolution – from music business manager to non-profit innovator to teacher.
“Her communications and creative talent has helped (RED) become a leader in the innovative fundraising space…a model that has been copied by just about every social issue.”