Kae (Karen) Porter
Kae Porter brings over 30 years of marketing, communications and public relations experience to Proof Communications, where she has been a valued member of the team for the past 12 months.
An English-born writer who made Australia home in the early 1990s, Kae’s career is a testament to what happens when a lifelong love of language meets sharp business instinct and an insatiable curiosity about how the world works.
Kae’s story as a writer began long before her professional career. As a teenager in the 1980s, she launched and self-published a fanzine – what we would call a lifestyle and music blog today – securing a Prince’s Trust Grant to bring it to life. With an early ambition to enter the world of journalism as a feature writer, she never lost that drive, and it has guided her through multiple forms of written expression over the years.
Her academic background is in Law and Publishing, with a BA (Hons) from Oxford Brookes University and a Diploma in Law from the Legal Profession Admission Board of NSW. After a brief foray into the legal sector – which confirmed that a life of analysing and applying legislation and case law was not for her – Kae combined her legal knowledge and flair for writing as the in-house Public Relations Officer for a Legal Information Broker delivering revolutionary services to the legal profession at the start of the internet age. This was the beginning of a career spanning three decades, multiple industries and every conceivable format of the written word.
Over the course of her career, Kae has worked in-house, as a freelance consultant and as the founder and director of Underground Communications, her own award-winning, B Corp-Certified PR and communications agency, which she led for 10 years. That experience as an agency principal gives her a perspective that goes well beyond writing. In this role, she developed a solid understanding of communications strategy, managing client relationships and the bigger picture that sits behind a communications brief.
Kae is a B2B specialist with deep experience across a broad range of sectors, including hospitality, construction, manufacturing, retail, packaging, real estate, maritime services, legal and professional services. Her writing spans marketing content, media releases, social media content, long-form articles and ghost writing – with award writing being one of her particular strengths. In 2019, Kae wrote the Underground Communications award submission for the PRIA Golden Target Awards – Small Budget Campaign, which they won at both the NSW State and National levels. Since joining Proof Communications, she has seen three clients reach finalist status for awards she has crafted on their behalf.
What sets Kae apart is her writer’s ear, strategist’s mind and a genuine enthusiasm for understanding the businesses she works with. She picks up new subject matter quickly and brings the same curiosity and love of the written word to every project that once led a teenager to publish her own magazine from the ground up.
