Shannon Peel

Senior communications and content strategy leader with 10+ years building integrated communications programmes, stakeholder engagement systems, and editorial content ecosystems from the ground up, combined with direct experience advising senior executives, managing cross-functional communications teams, and translating complex organisational priorities into clear, compelling content for diverse audiences. I combine a journalist's instinct for finding the story with a strategist's discipline for building the system that tells it consistently. I've built community programmes sustaining 60%+ open rates for three years after active promotion stopped.

I've ghostwritten for a Marsh McLennan CEO. I've managed 8–12 concurrent client communications programmes as the sole senior practitioner, developing the accountability, deadline discipline, and stakeholder management skills that large-scale internal communications environments demand.

Brand Narrative and Communications - MarketAPeel - Vancouver, BC

(2016-01 - 2026-12)

B2B brand strategy and communications consultancy. Built and scaled community-driven editorial systems that grew engaged marketing and leadership audiences through practitioner insight and multi-format content.

• Advised small businesses, thought leaders, and professional service firms on brand definition, storytelling, and digital ecosystem development to build authority and credibility in their markets. Closed the agency to be part of a team doing work to build bigger projects, which requires being inside an organization, not outside it. Used multiple communications planning tools and project tracking tools to ensure all tasks completed and all stakeholders were mapped and informed.
• Developed and executed integrated communications strategies spanning media relations, executive communications, thought leadership, internal communications, stakeholder engagement, and digital channels. Built comprehensive plans tailored to each client's business objectives, stakeholder landscape, and operating environment. Strategies drove measurable gains in brand awareness, thought leadership visibility, and stakeholder engagement scores.
• Built issues monitoring systems that identified emerging risks before they escalated. Continuously monitored media coverage, competitor narratives, audience sentiment, and environmental signals, translating insights into proactive adjustments and recommendations.
• Served as trusted communications advisor to corporate executives, stakeholders, and organizational leadership. Provided strategic counsel on stakeholder engagement, reputational risk, and issues management.
• Ghostwrote Pushers of the Possible for Anthony Gruppo, former International CEO of Marsh Commercial and Regional CEO of Marsh McLennan Americas, capturing complex subject matter and executive thought leadership in a compelling long-form narrative. Managed the project end-to-end from stakeholder interviews through publication.
• Oversaw development of high-stakes communications materials including strategic plans, issues management frameworks, media releases, executive briefings, op-eds, and stakeholder correspondence. Ensured all external messaging aligned with organizational priorities, regulatory requirements, and legal guidance.
• Designed and executed stakeholder engagement programs that built trust and advocacy among diverse audiences, including business associations, community organizations, industry partners, and public stakeholders. Developed engagement strategies that translated complex, technical issues into resonant narratives. Engagement programs drove measurable gains in stakeholder behaviours.
• Managed media relations across multiple client engagements, building journalist relationships, pitching stories, preparing spokespeople, and securing earned coverage in top-tier and trade outlets.
• Built every stakeholder relationship from scratch, mapped every communications dependency, and owned every deadline. Demonstrated the judgment, discipline, and narrative command required to drive results in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
• Built and ran media relations from zero across concurrent B2B clients, identified target outlets, developed pitch angles, maintained journalist relationships, and drove earned coverage across trade and business press without agency infrastructure.
• Ghostwrote Pushers of the Possible for Anthony Gruppo, former International CEO of Marsh Commercial and Regional CEO of Marsh McLennan Americas, capturing his voice with enough fidelity for use in senior business conversations at Fortune 500 scale; standing endorsement from the client remains in active use across applications.
• Built and operated a full content library from zero: five branded APeeling Summit virtual events (3,771 subscribers, compounding organically three years after active promotion ended, zero paid spend), two independently published digital magazines (BrandAPeel and CurbAPeel), and 100 podcast episodes released in 100 consecutive days.
• Achieved 60%+ sustained lifecycle email engagement (roughly triple the 20–25% B2B benchmark) and 40%+ cold outreach open rates (roughly double the 15–20% benchmark) through audience-specific messaging, behavioural segmentation, and editorial precision, quantified evidence of commercial judgment applied to content.
• Designed and operated a 40,000-contact segmented outreach system delivering 1,000 personalized introductions per month, generating 60–90 confirmed clicks per subscriber per cycle and driving 4x monthly click performance growth through continuous behaviour segmentation.
• Translated complex, technically dense subject matter, regulatory, financial, operational, insurance, and risk content, into clear public narrative for professional-services and financial clients, developing the compliance-aware editorial judgment required when accuracy carries reputational weight.

Sales & Customer Success Manager - HomeStars - Vancouver, BC

(2013-01 - 2016-12)

• Designed and produced a lifecycle content and communications programme from a blank page, without a brief, budget, or template, cutting account churn in half (from 30% to 15%) across 300+ B2B accounts, hands-on execution of the entire retention content function inside a growth-stage tech environment.
• Wrote and delivered ongoing customer communications, onboarding content, and account-level messaging translating platform complexity into clear, adoption-ready language for a non-technical B2B audience, the same discipline required to write content senior B2B buyers actually read.
• Operated as the sole dedicated communications and retention specialist in British Columbia, coordinating messaging across a distributed sales team of six and one regional sales manager.

Advertising & Marketing Sales Consultant - CanPages / THN Publications - Western Canada

(2006-01 - 2012-12)

• Managed B2B consultative relationships across Western Canada, translating unfamiliar digital advertising products into clear, adoption-ready language for skeptical small-business owners, commercial content instinct applied to a real audience, a real pain point, and a measurable outcome.
• Advised clients on print and digital content placement, ad creative, and messaging strategy, the ground-level commercial experience that connects content to a persona, a stage, and a buying decision.

Sales & Marketing Associate - CM Oliver & Raymond James - Calgary, AB

(1994-01 - 2004-12)

• Spent a decade inside a regulated Canadian investment dealer producing client-facing content, marketing materials, and communications reviewed under IIROC compliance standards, developing the editorial precision and brand-voice consistency habits that carry directly into any regulated or senior B2B content environment.
• Built client communication systems and executive stakeholder messaging in a sector where accuracy, disclosure, and reputation are the primary currency.

Bachelor of Arts - BA - University of British Columbia (UBC)