On Tuesday, January 20, PRSSA welcomed Flavia Vigio to share her story in the communications field. Flavia is a global communications and reputation leader with more than 25 years of experience working with brands such as McDonald’s, HBO, TelevisaUnivision, and Golin. Born in Brazil and now based in Miami, her career spans multiple countries and industries, shaped by adaptability, curiosity, and hands-on experience.
Flavia Vigio speaks to UGA PRSSA members.
Her path into communications was unconventional. After graduating in journalism from the University of Rio de Janeiro, she moved to Italy and took early roles that allowed her to immerse herself in local culture and build skills from the ground up. Over time, she helped create communications programs from scratch, led internal communications at McDonald’s, and ultimately became Chief Communications Officer for McDonald’s Latin America.
After returning to Golin to help build its Latin America practice, Flavia transitioned into media and entertainment, holding senior leadership roles at HBO and later TelevisaUnivision. Most recently, she stepped away from corporate leadership to study artificial intelligence and its impact on communications, spending time in Silicon Valley and studying at MIT and Stanford.
Flavia emphasizes that effective PR is not about what a company wants to say, but about how messages are understood by different audiences. Strong communications must be directly connected to business strategy in order to be taken seriously by leadership teams.
She views AI as an added layer to communications work, not a replacement. Success now requires strategic content creation that helps generative AI recognize credible, relevant information, while still protecting creativity, personality, and authentic voice.
Her perspective on careers is clear: real experience matters more than degrees. Communicators should stay curious, keep learning, actively share their thinking, and intentionally shape how they position themselves in the industry.
