About Thandi

Thandi Fletcher is an award-winning public relations professional and former journalist who lives on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, also known as Vancouver.

Currently the senior media strategist for a highly ranked public research institution, Thandi has helped scientists and educators secure media coverage of their work in top-tier media outlets around the world, including the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and The Guardian.

As a communicator, she has worked with a diverse range of clients, from scientists to museum curators, real estate developers, start-up tech companies, and tourism operators. As a former journalist, Thandi’s byline has appeared in major daily newspapers across Canada.

In 2011, she was the winner of the Michelle Lang Fellowship in Journalism, and spent a year producing a series—published across the Postmedia Network chain—on the hurdles breast cancer patients face seeking reconstructive surgery in Canada.

In 2013, she wrote the story about Miles Ambridge, a young boy in a wheelchair who was separated from his classmates in an insensitive class photo. That feature received millions of page views and is one of the most-read stories in Postmedia history.

Thandi has Bachelor of Journalism degree with a double minor in mass communication and music from Carleton University, and a Master of Arts in Leadership degree from Royal Roads University. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education (EdD) in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of British Columbia.

In her free time, Thandi has provided communications services to the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada as a volunteer, and also serves as a volunteer judge and judge coordinator for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. She is also a long-distance runner and enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband Aaron and their dog, Henry.

Originally from Cape Town, Thandi is a dual South African and Canadian citizen. Her name—which means “she who is beloved” in Zulu and Xhosa—is pronounced tun-dee. And in case you were wondering—her company logo is inspired by her last name, which means “maker of arrows.”