On Friday 2 October 2020, Flow Communications celebrated its 15th birthday. The company was registered in September 2005 and started operating from a small spare bedroom in Johannesburg.
Today, Flow has a dedicated team of around 50 permanent staff members, offering wide-ranging communications experience and services, including brand, print, digital, social media and public relations, as well as media- and communications-training services.
An agile, fully remote-working company, Flow is able to service a wide range of clients across multiple sectors and, as a young and innovative organisation, we strive to deliver cutting-edge solutions.
We’re proud to still be doing business with some of our long-standing clients who have been with us since the very beginning. These include Maropeng, Wits University and the Heart Failure Society of South Africa. Hollard has been in business with Flow for more than 10 years, Mango Airlines for over five years, and the South African Society of Anaesthesiologists has also been a client for several years. In Cape Town, the Two Oceans Aquarium and Table Mountain Aerial Cableway are two of our long-standing clients.
At Flow, our people are at the core of what we do. The company is steered by an excellent management team, leading a staff of skilled, qualified and effective people who live out Flow’s vision and mission.
Below, some of our beloved Flowstars share some fond memories of their time at Flow and the reasons why they enjoy being part of our pink train:
Roy Barford, business developer:
I’ve been at Flow for nearly 11 years and for me the overall highlight has been the number of jobs that the company has played a part in creating – both directly and through our work with clients.
In 2010 and 2011, we put a massive amount of effort into the campaign that eventually saw Table Mountain becoming one of the New7Wonders of Nature. According to a Grant Thornton study at the time, this would result in the creation of 11 000 jobs and I will never forget the pride I felt when the announcement was made on 11 November 2011.
This campaign was just one example of how Flow does things for the greater good and not for profit or ego. Through Flow, I’ve done work in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces, as well as places like Reunion Island, Kenya and Uganda – helping to set up the Wonders of Watamu campaign in Kenya in 2014/15 was a dream come true.
In recent years, it’s been great to see Flow’s work recognised through various awards, with around 23 different clients being the recipients. Flow has always been about the people – people I’m very grateful for.
Riefkah Adams, project manager:
Gosh! I’ve been at Flow for six years and have so many beautiful memories to share, it’s hard to dish out just one. Apart from the many wonderful and varied clients I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve also met the most incredible, intelligent, creative and innovative people I know. As a matter of fact, I have made a bestie out of one who used to work at Flow!
A memory that sticks in my mind is the #RideForNature campaign we did for the World Wide Fund for Nature, which was a client of ours at the time. Roy was dressed up in a panda suit!
I roped in a friend to join me on the night’s shenanigans. We dressed up in panda onesies and rode hired bicycles through the Cape Town CBD, Sea Point, Green Point and all the way to the Cape Town Stadium, where we followed Roy around dressed as a panda and taking pictures with Capetonians along the way.
Flow is not just a company, it’s a family. You are cared for as if you belong, you grow, you learn, you adapt. I’m happy to be a part of this wonderful, pink family, an environment where business and family meet – equally.
Tiffany Turkington-Palmer, managing director:
There are so many things to love about Flow: the culture, the fun, the wins, the love, the challenges and the future. But most of all I love my fellow Flowstars and the amazing client partners we have. The world is made up of people and we are lucky enough to have the very best of them.
Sarah-Jane Viljoen, Cape Town manager:
I love working at Flow for many reasons, but my number one is that you can be completely yourself without any pretences or airs and graces.
One of my favourite memories is when the managers had to go through an exercise of “industrial theatre” to dramatise the values at Flow, and perform for the staff at the end-of-year function in 2018. It took us all very much out of our comfort zones, but we got to know each other so much better and really felt like a unit.
We had a fun time prepping, but when it came to the end of the actual performance, there was just a hushed and awkward silence. We realised that the staff were literally speechless at how awkward the whole thing was. Nothing like a big dose of humility to put you in your place!
Roshni Nana, project manager:
My fondest memory of Flow is “lunch days” at 7 Douglas Lane. Yes, it was a treat to be fed by Flow, but what made lunch days special was that we all got to sit together around the patio or kitchen tables to share a meal. Better still was the banter and stories we shared. We laughed and argued and there was often healthy debate. But it always ended with full bellies and big smiles.
