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Smrstik

Only the name is complicated.

Smrstik Communications is about writing. Clear, intelligent, appealing writing in English for international audiences.

Language is powerful

If your company or organization needs writing and editing services, or you’re seeking advice on how to communicate your messages effectively, working with me will make your job easier.

Almost finished, but still needs polishing?
I proofread and edit texts or translations.

Know what to do, but have no time to get it done?
I write finished communications from your drafts or a briefing.

Need support from the start?
I’ll develop a plan to get your stories told, in your voice and style.

What to expect

  • A pragmatic partner with journalistic skills and multimedia experience.
  • A professional who cares about language.
  • Excellent writing and editorial skills in English as well as in German.
  • I’m used to working in different environments, from the factory floor to the boardroom. And culturally at home from New York to Basel, Vienna to Istanbul, Berlin to Tallinn.

Caroline Smrstik Gentner is a U.S.-educated, European-based journalist, internal communications specialist, and writer.

Following graduate study at Stanford University, I served as political and economic correspondent for the German wire service dpa and the Economist Intelligence Unit in central and eastern Europe in the 1990s. Stations included Prague, Bratislava, Istanbul, Riga and Tallinn.

In Switzerland since the turn of the millennium, I’ve worked as a communications professional in financial services and the pharmaceutical industry. I’m comfortable writing about finance, manufacturing, supply chain, health care, educational policy, migration, and more.

I’m a naturalized Swiss citizen with a German husband and son. When not writing, I may be found on a horse, hiking somewhere, on skis, playing the viola, trying to improve my Russian, in the garden, or laughing with my family.

My CV on LinkedIn

I know the vocabulary.

Corporate experience in financial services, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing. Journalistic experience in political and financial reporting, educational policy issues.

Your organization, your needs, your messages: understood.

My years in corporate communication gave me a close-up look at how markets work and businesses change. With this knowledge, I can put your communication needs into the right context.

Whether your organization is large or small, national or international, I can identify your business and strategic priorities and find a way to share them in words that your audiences understand.

Communications planning in numerous restructuring projects; executive ghostwriting; led interdisciplinary teams on development and launch of employer brand.

Communications planning for manufacturing and supply chain, including acquisitions and restructuring.

Communications planning in cross-functional restructuring projects and acquisitions, developed internal communications network.

Wrote and edited quarterly financial reports, developed internal communications network.

Journalistic writing

Download journalism samples (PDF)

Recent published work

Lucky Lusitano: A Portuguese idyll. The Cosmopolitan Globalist, May 2021.

Interviews with authors and education innovators for the blog on learning and development BOLD, powered by the Jacobs Foundation:

“Teacher-led innovation is an unexplored treasure trove.” Interview with Lasse Leponiemi, education leader and Executive Director of HundrED, for BOLD, December 2021.

“Students benefit when they are given more responsibility.” Interview with Swiss teacher Renée Lechner, for BOLD, October 2021.

Back to school means confronting the education gap. Part of a series on teachers around the world coping with the pandemic, for BOLD, May 2020.

“Children have to navigate the moral inconsistencies of adults.” Interview with Paul Bloom, psychologist and cognitive scientist, for BOLD, August 2019.

 

 

Don’t know where to start? Let’s talk.

+41 75 402 09 09hi@smrstik.ch Twitter
Smrstik (Gentner) Communications, Föhrenweg 1, 5436 Würenlos, Switzerland
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