Dustin Chick
Dustin is a Partner in the M&C Saatchi Group South Africa and Managing Director of Razor PR.
Dustin is recognised as one of the top reputation managers and communicators in South Africa, having been named South Africa’s best PR Professional in 2021 by the Public Relations Institute of SA (PRISA) and was previously named by as one of the Top 25 Innovators in public relations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2019 by leading industry publication Provoke. Dustin sits on the board of the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), the world’s leading body of strategic communicators.
He advises CEO’s, C-Suite leaders, government ministers and community organisations on reputation and specializes in strategic reputation as well as issues and crisis management.
He has extensive communications experience, having managed various multi-national brands and campaigns including developing the reputation management strategy for Brand South Africa, successful engagement campaigns at the World Economic Forum in Davos and domestic mobilisation efforts for the 2010 FIFA World Cup (where he helped develop the highly successful Football Fridays campaign). His other experience includes roles as the communications leads on state visits and international trade missions for Brand South Africa, where he managed proactive issues outreach in building South Africa’s profile as an investment destination. Dustin has served as a member of the National Communications Task Team, a body set up to advise the Minister of Communications on South Africa’s country positioning as both a tourism and investment destination locally and internationally.
His deep issues experience covers a range of industries and sectors, including food, agriculture, technology, mining, automotive and financial services. Dustin has deep pan-African communications experience having managed the multimarket communications programmes for companies like the Western Union Company where he drove its continent-wide thought leadership strategy.
Under Dustin’s leadership, Razor was named the World’s Best New Agency by global industry magazine Provoke, beating out long-established agencies in established global hubs such as New York and London. This is the first time EVER that a South African PR agency has been recognised on such a global footing. In its 2022 annual global rankings Provoke named Razor one of the five fastest growing agencies globally, and the overall best performing agency across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Razor was named African Agency of the Year at the EMEA SABRE Awards and was awarded with grands prix for best overall campaign in Africa as well as the best overall reputation management work in EMEA over the last 12 months. Globally, Razor is the most awarded agency in Africa and from Africa.
He was previously Head of Strategy at Ogilvy, where he led areas such as communications strategy, planning, insights, data & analytics and issues and crisis management across the group. Dustin was also previously a journalist for some of South Africa’s most respected media, including Business Day and Talk Radio 702 and was managing editor of financial services industry title MoneyMarketing.