Tell us a little about your current role and career to date?
After a 28 year career in PR agency roles, last year I stepped away from the only world I’ve known and took up an in-house job as Head of Comms and Marketing at Age NI.
My agency career has given me experience on a broad range of clients, from being the brand guardian for global names like McDonald’s, Pepsi, Tesco and Barclays, to working with councils and public bodies across the island, through to promoting landmark Northern Ireland events like the Clipper Round the World yacht race in Legenderry/Derry and the Portrush Airwaves airshow, working with the mighty Red Arrows. It’s been colourful and ever-changing for sure!
Despite the pressures of agency life, I have always said that I truly love my job. It’s fast paced, offers so much variety, and for someone like me who is impatient, you get to see the fruits of your labour quickly: result! Agency life can also be all-consuming and I often said, if you didn’t love it, you couldn’t give it as much as it demands. After almost three head-spinning decades, the pandemic made me think about work-life balance and the need to perhaps shift the dial a little more in the favour of life (four kids, hard-working husband, ageing parents, infrequently-seen friends) and less heavily weighted on work.
My recent move brings together some of my greatest passions over the years: I worked as press officer for the Belfast City Hospital Trust for 7 years so I have a huge interest in health comms; in 2020 I worked with a local nursing home group, Healthcare Ireland, helping them navigate the challenges of Covid and the roll-out of the first vaccine in Northern Ireland; and some of my proudest comms achievements have been campaigns for charities including the NI Children’s Hospice and Leukaemia & Lymphoma NI.
And so, my journey to the largest charity for older people feels like a natural fit. I was fortunate to work with Age NI as a client in 2020 and this insight into their work, their ethos and their fantastic team gave me the courage to make the leap over the professional fence to an in-house role.
Is there any aspect of your job you particularly enjoy? And any aspect you don't enjoy?
Stereotypically in the world of agency, stressed-out consultants like to imagine that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence in an in-house role. I am delighted to say it’s definitely grassy, but not necessarily greener: this is a very busy role and there are many similarities with agency life.
I work with a variety of departments, each with their own projects, from policy and political work, to rapid-paced press office, to fundraising appeals, and marketing campaigns to deliver advice, financial, health and wellbeing information to older people and their families. There are always many balls in the air and an ever-changing landscape of lead-times and deadlines. The buzz is very definitely still there.
Not long after my move, with the suggestion that the new job would perhaps be a little less busy, my husband suggested maybe the problem was just me. I think he’s right – this is not a quiet life and I’m really glad!
What I enjoy most in this new in-house role is the opportunity to go deeper in just one area and get to understand the things that matter most to older people. In an era of digital comms, the challenges of finding the channels to reach older people are never far from our consideration. We have a wonderful Consultative Forum of older people who volunteer their time to give their views on all the big issues affecting them. The opportunity to engage with them is both enlightening and great craic – they tell it like it is! In marketing terms, the over 50s are an audience often overlooked or massed in with “all adults” and I’m on a bit of a mission now to ensure other comms people can give this audience the special focus they deserve and require.
We’re working hard to make sure the voice of older people can be heard, to break down prejudices and ageist bias, to promote public information and services needed to live well for longer and to use older people’s unique insights to inform how all manner of public and commercial services are delivered.
It feels great to be working with purpose rather than always having one eye focused on profit. This is what drives me now and it’s a great goal to wake up to in the morning. And I don’t miss timesheets. There. I’ve said it!
What career advice would you give to your younger self?
I benefited from some amazing mentors and managers; I learned from the bottom up and have kept on learning. I’ve worked my butt off and I would do it all again (although my family probably wish I had worked less long hours – sorry kids for all the work calls in the car outside school while waiting for your siblings to come out). I would say to my younger self: give it your all, work hard, take the responsibility seriously, have fun whenever you can and you will be rewarded with friendships, adventures, challenges, conundrums and results; most of all, never stop learning (oh, and probably, don’t go to that Christmas do in the Welly Park in the late 90’s, it’ll be messy).
Why did you decide to join the PRCA NI Committee?
I joined the PRCA NI Committee because I became a Chartered PR practitioner in 2019, which was one of the most challenging (terrifying) and rewarding things I’ve ever done. Part of the assessment involves writing a long term CPD plan and I wanted to take a bigger picture view of this on behalf of the industry. As PR professionals, we are instrumental in corporate decision-making, we influence at the highest level and we’re at the very top of the speed-dial list when something goes wrong; and yet our profession is misunderstood – or at worst – undervalued.
At the minute, we also have a massive skills shortage, particularly in the agencies. I want to see PR professionals on a par at the top table of industry and I would love comms jobs to be seen as attractive to the crème de la crème of our students and graduates, alongside law, medicine and accountancy. The work we’re currently doing with Ulster University is just one of the exciting things we’re doing to build the pipeline of talent, to inspire the next generation of bright young communications professionals – and to keep them here in Northern Ireland. I believe comms excellence is at the heart of how everything works and this job is one of the very best. Simple!
Read our previous 'Meet the Comittee' Q&As with Riki Neill & Geri Wright, Claire Best, Sarah Hamilton and Claire Bonner.