Oct 8 2024
Morgane Danielou, Head of Global Communications for Target Malaria at Imperial College London
Introduction:
Morgane Danielou is Head of Global Communications for Target Malaria at Imperial College London. She runs a team of communications experts based in Africa and Europe. Morgane is a strong believer in DEI and wishes to create opportunities for young people, especially from minority backgrounds. Morgane has been mentoring youth for many years and is committed to challenging stereotypes in her approach to recruitment but also to communications. In her role, she strives to ensure Target Malaria’s communication is ethically driven, spotlights the voices of those who are at most affected by malaria, challenges harmful narratives and pushes stories about underrepresented communities on the global stage.
Interview:
How did you learn about the 10kBI and 10kAI programmes?
Because of the nature of the work that we do – which is focused on eliminating malaria in Africa, the challenge for us was to recruit people who have ideally lived or have come from Africa. So I started doing a lot of research on recruiting people who have personal or professional experience in Africa, and came across the 10,000 Black Interns Programme.
How did you find the recruitment and interview process of candidates?
The experience with 10,000 Black Interns was very professional. The software – Pinpoint – struck me well, and there was so much wealth in the types of profiles we received. It was a double-edged sword, because it took a long time to go through all of them. I spent hours on it, because there were so many profiles that were wonderful and it was hard to select between candidates.
What was your favourite training session?
I really enjoyed the interview training that I took. It focused on how the candidates are young graduates that may not have been through hundreds of interviews in the past, and how it’s really important to put them at ease. Although I conduct a lot of interviews, the training gave very hands-on tips that I thought were very nicely presented and well done. It put me in a really good framework to start running interviews.
What does diversity and equity look like in your industry?
We are a research consortium at Imperial College that brings together different research institutions in Africa, Europe, and the US. Our colleagues are really all over the world, and more than half of our teams are based in Africa.
But the Global Team that is based in Imperial College is not that diverse. Many colleagues have never been to Africa before working for the Target Malaria project, which creates a lot of issues in cultural differences, styles of management, and communication. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to be part of the 10,000 Black Interns programme.
What would you say to a company that is considering their participation in the 10kBI and 10kAI programmes?
I encourage every organisation to be part of mentoring training and giving a chance to young graduates, because it is so difficult to get the first job and the first work experience. We have a duty as employers to give a chance to the new generation. In a climate where we need more social justice, we need to give a chance to everybody, and programmes are needed to give a chance to those who don’t necessarily have the family network, the background to be able to know which kinds of work opportunities exist for them.
