IOC Strategic Comms Chief Leaving Lausanne

(ATR) The IOC is searching for a new strategic communications director following the resignation of Rebecca Lowell Edwards after less than 18 months.

Edwards confirms her departure to Around the Rings. She leaves the IOC in November. The illness of her mother is a big reason for the move she says.

Her work at next month’s Youth Olympic Games and the Olympism in Action Forum in Buenos Aires will be among her final projects.

"We regret but understand Becky’s decision to step down from her role for family reasons,"IOC Director GeneralChristophe De Keppersaid in a statement.

"In her one-year tenure, she paved the way for the implementation of a new communications strategy reflecting the recommendations of Olympic Agenda 2020. We are losing a good colleague and wish her every success in her future career."

In June 2017, Edwards became the IOC’s first-ever director of strategic communications and public affairs in Lausanne. She was the first American hired as a director of an IOC department. Her appointment ended a two-year search to fill the newly-created role.

When she arrived, Edwards took over some of the responsibilities of Mark Adams. The IOC's communications director had shifted his position to become spokesman for President Thomas Bach.

Although coming from outside sport, De Kepper said at the time that the IOC would benefit from Edward’s appointment through her "strategic insight in communicating its mission, vision and values to the public".

Edwards was chief communications officer at the subsidiary of multinational GE in London since 2013 and previously held jobs at Dow Jones News Service and The Wall Street Journal.

She exits the Olympic committee at a time when the IOC’s image continues to take a battering over its Olympic bidding procedure and perceptions about the cost of staging the Games – and with little over 18 months to the Tokyo Olympics.

The IOC’s New Norm, the tag for a set of 118 measures bolted on to Agenda 2020 reforms, is still not widely understood nor fully communicated. The New Norm was designed to revive the 2026 Olympic bidding contest and offer guidance for potential host cities and existing hosts – as well as improving public perceptions of the Olympic brand.

The strategic changes associated with the dual award of the 2024 and 2028 Games to Paris and Los Angeles last year have also tested the IOC communications department.

The IOC says a search for Edwards' successor will begin immediately.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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