PR In Canada

About: Sandra Upeslacis

Sandra Upeslacis is the Manager of Talent Retention and Acquisition at NATIONAL Public Relations, Toronto, Canada's largest public relations firm. Sandra has more than 20 years of public relations and journalism experience and recently turned her attention to assisting NATIONAL in recruiting and retaining communications professionals. She has been a public relations consultant to many of Canada’s leading public and private sector organizations, including the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Ontario Health Services Restructuring Commission, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, and Warner Lambert Consumer Healthcare, among many others. She has worked as a magazine, television and radio journalist, and is fluent in English, French and Latvian. The former President of IDEASPEAK, her own Firm, Sandra provided strategic public relations counsel to her clients. Previously, she was Vice President of NATIONAL Public Relations, responsible for senior client counsel, brand awareness building, corporate positioning, communications training and niche marketing for such companies as Nokia Canada, Kraft Canada, White Mountain Academy of the Arts, and Nordic Selfcare Institute. Prior to NATIONAL Public Relations, Sandra was Vice President at Strategic Objectives, one of the country’s foremost consumer marketing public relations firms. She led key accounts such as the Liquor Control Board of Ontario's (LCBO) Shop the World, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Tropicana Canada and Johnson & Johnson, among others. Sandra has also held the positions of: Manager of Communications, the Ontario Premier’s Council; Editor of Ottawa Woman magazine; Associate Editor, Ottawa Magazine; Senior Reporter for OMNI Television’s Sveiks program; Writer, for the National Research Council’s Science Dimension magazine; Associate Producer, First Video Productions; and Producer/Host at CKCU-FM radio, in Ottawa. Sandra holds an Honours Bachelor of Journalism Degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, and a Diplôme de langue et civilisations françaises from the Université de Paris-Sorbonne, in Paris, France. Her awards include: Best Law Firm Client Newsletter in “Your Honour” International Competition, National Association of Law Firm Marketing Administrators, awarded for developing Gowling, Strathy & Henderson’s Communiqué newsletter, 1990; and Best Producer, Public Affairs Program, CKCU-FM, 1981. Sandra is the author of A Visitor from Latvia, a novel about Latvian-Canadians and contemporary Latvia, published October 2004, and producer-director of a one-hour OMNI Television documentary, The Long Road Back to Faith, about the rebirth of the Lutheran religion in post-communist Latvia. The documentary premiered in April 2007.