In November 2024, the Westmead Master Plan Engagement project received a Highly Commended award in the Stakeholder Engagement category at the Planning Institute of Australia’s NSW Awards for Planning Excellence. I was part of the engagement team at Cumberland City Council during this project, and it was a real privilege to be there on the night as the work was recognised.

The SMART Cumberland Program was also acknowledged with a Highly Commended award in the Technology and Digital Innovation category – a great reflection of the talent, creativity and collaboration across the Place and Economy and Urban Strategy and Planning teams.

Image: PIA NSW Awards for Planning Excellence 2024 – official event photography.

Cumberland Staff at the PIA NSW Awards 2024

Business vs Brand

A business sells products or services.
A brand builds meaning.

Understanding the difference sounds simple, but it changes everything — especially for anyone working in communications or strategic engagement. A business focuses on transactions. A brand focuses on relationships, trust and long-term connection. Engagement is the space where those things are created and reinforced.

More than logos, fonts and colours

Brand identity isn’t just visual design — it’s the reputation people form through every interaction, every conversation, and every decision you make. Strategic engagement strengthens that identity by ensuring those interactions feel consistent, credible and human. It’s how expectations are shaped, how trust is earned, and how people decide whether they want to come back.

A business tells people what it does.
A brand shows people who it is.

A client who needed her own voice

Recently, I worked with a client who owned several franchises of a national women’s gym chain. She was smart, driven and deeply committed to women’s health — and she wanted to expand her profile into media commentary: a trusted voice on women’s fitness, wellbeing and empowerment.

The challenge was clear: her personal voice needed to be distinct from the brand she represented, even though her day-to-day work lived inside it. The franchise had its own tone, its own identity and its own messaging framework. If she simply echoed that, she would remain invisible as an individual expert.

We worked together to articulate her perspective — what she believed, what she wanted to influence, and what she stood for beyond the franchise environment. That clarity became the foundation of her personal brand. Over time, her public identity grew: less about the business she operated and more about her expertise in women’s fitness and wellbeing more broadly.

The business supported her.
But the brand was her. 

Where brand really lives

Your brand is the experience people have when they work with you. It’s the story they tell afterwards. It’s how they describe you when you’re not in the room.

Not the logo.
Not the palette.
Not the tagline.

The feeling.

A business keeps the doors open.
A brand keeps people coming back — and brings others with them.

So ask yourself: what does your brand say about you, your work, and the experience you create?

A simple comparison I often use when discussing identity, trust and engagement.