About

Consulting partners with nearly 30 years' combined experience, Jessica Murdoch and Alison Ruks provide executive level marketing, communications, and investor relations services. Murdoch & Ruks functions as an independent, on-demand extension of your company’s team – delivering customized solutions with a defined scope and measurable results.

In order to be successful, brands must establish trust with consumers and investors. This trust stems from open communication with meaningful messaging. Great visual design is also vital, and it’s out there, but an engaging brand story with well-constructed messaging and a cohesive narrative arc is harder to come by. Disjointed, jargon-filled content is common and is often produced by visual design experts; it looks great but doesn’t really say anything or resonate with the audience.

Murdoch & Ruks specializes in creating relatable brand content and stories that weave visual design together with narrative design; a strategy that can see the forest for the trees. Combining broad, multi-divisional, executive level business experience with writing expertise, we guide perception of the brand through precise storytelling. We know what resonates with media, investors, customers and businesses. We tell the story each audience wants to hear.

MEET THE TEAM
Jessica and Alison first began collaborating in mid-2018 while working on the team establishing an upcoming large-scale cannabis and hemp producer, where they discovered their complementary skills and parallel perspectives made for an ideal partnership. They bring the exceptional relationship and communications skills; strategic big picture and long-term mindset; industry knowledge and experience; and the positive, team-oriented approach that are vital to executing projects effectively.

Alison Ruks

Alison brings over 15 years of experience specializing as an executive leader in both the cannabis and natural health industries. She has demonstrated success in companies across multiple industries and in public, private and non-profit sectors via her passion and history of providing elevated leadership, promoting people-and-culture-focused human resources programs, shaping strategic plans, effectively executing projects, developing and distributing products at a global scale, and facilitating optimal brand identity and communication. She has engaged in the development of multiple brands, business models, and the associated investor relations and communications that resulted in fundraising results in the multi-millions.

Alison’s early foresight into the rising trends of plant-based medicine and a passion for health led her to begin her career studying natural medicine in 2001. After starting her first business in her early 20s in the natural health industry, she further expanded her business acumen by pursuing a business degree – graduating with honours - from the University of British Columbia. With a combined passion for health, wellness and business, she shortly thereafter became certified as a Chartered Human Resources Professional with a goal of fostering positive, healthy, and productive workplaces.

As an executive in the burgeoning cannabis industry since 2013, Alison continues to combine her education, expertise, and experience in natural health, cannabis and business; now providing marketing, communications, and investor relations consulting services to various companies via Murdoch & Ruks.

Jessica Murdoch

An adept communications professional, Jessica has 14+ years’ experience working with businesses and individuals to define and convey their message clearly, concisely and effectively. Having worked across a variety of industries including cannabis, healthcare, retail, mining, and security, Jessica specializes in writing and editing both internal and external communications (newsletters, web copy, blog posts, articles, proposals, press releases, etc.), project management, and implementing and refining marketing, communications, business, and publication strategies.

Jessica has demonstrated success in influencing companies by improving brand recognition and market positioning, creating and executing communications programs, and significantly increasing business revenues. Her accomplishments include implementing the internal communications strategy at lululemon athletica, which transformed the organization and significantly increased productivity for all employees, and winning hundreds of millions of dollars of business for The Paladin Security Group through her business proposal oversight.

Jessica is passionate about effective communication and believes it is vital to an organization’s success. She has a diverse educational background which includes Professional Writing and Editing at Simon Fraser University. While she is experienced at writing business communications, she is driven by a love for storytelling and a strong sense of humour, and highly values authentic connections and fostering positivity in workplace culture.