Interview with Dr Meily Cheung
Associate Professor of School of Communication and Programme Director of BJC Programme

Communication and media are now facing sharp challenges in this fast-changing era. Dr Meily Cheung, who is a seasoned expert in corporate communication and communication education, has mixed feelings about this. She particularly shares two unforgettable occasions with us.

Dr Cheung recalls the time working as the Head of the Marketing Department in a retail company. Though many years ago, the tough experience in preparing the opening of the flagship store is still vivid to her. “During the preparation period, we formed a taskforce group with different units including the purchasing department, shop managers and the appointed design company. We also flew to mainland China, Taiwan, Germany, London and so on for site visits to gain better knowledge of shop design, products categories, marketing strategies, etc. Not only did the project take a long time, but it also involved a wide variety of issues. This was a very all-round and valuable project experience to me.”

Dr Cheung’s another unforgettable experience relates to the crisis management in a sizeable enterprise, where she served as the Public Relations Manager of Hong Kong headquarters. This corporation put great emphasis on crisis management and was able to sense the rise of a crisis. They then immediately set up a special support team which consisted of members from senior management and a professional public relations agency to prepare for the potential issues. After the crisis, the team went on to follow up the post-crisis tasks to rebuild the company’s image and communicate with the stakeholders in the hope of recovering the market share and minimising the loss.

Both experiences brought Dr Cheung valuable lessons, from which she realised that a corporate mindset towards communication work is very important. The rise of social media leads to a swift information flow nowadays, resulting in shortened periods of time for project preparation with increasing numbers of items to be evaluated and reducing the buffer time for handling a crisis. While this imposes a greater challenge to corporate communication and public relations practitioners, it benefits a corporate’s development if staff of different levels in a company share the same mindset allowing internal strength to be built up to defend against external uncertainties.

That’s why Dr Cheung believes that “strategic communication”, that is forward-thinking and target-oriented is crucial. Technological development drives the participation of stakeholders and they have become more autonomous and active in expressing their voices. The political and economic development in the context of globalisation also increases the complexity for corporate communication and media to tackle problems. To cope with the ever-changing world, practitioners in corporate communication and media have to equip themselves with stronger strategic mindsets and capabilities to understand the characteristics and functions of different media, so that they can assess the stakeholders’ and market responses and choose a suitable medium or platform for promotion and communication. Furthermore, a corporate should build its own “trust bank” which will help providing a larger space for dialogue with different parties in case of crisis.

With her extensive experience in the communication industry, Dr Cheung joined the University 9 years ago, where she feels blessed to have the opportunity to develop her teaching career. From a part-time lecturer to now the Associate Professor of the School of Communication, she says it is important for teachers to raise the key points in class and ensure that students know the take-away messages, and teaching would be much more effective through the illustrations of different examples and with more interactions with students. For students who are interested in entering into the communication field, Dr Cheung suggests that they broaden their horizons and keep a sharp mind, at the same time be sensitive to current affairs and master the basic concepts of new technological development. Last but not least, Dr Cheung encourages students to increase their Emotional Quotient (EQ) and keep a healthy mind and body, so that they can face the dynamic challenges of the industry optimistically.