I’ve spent twenty years in PR, after earning a PR degree with a year in industry at Leeds Beckett University, I started out as an account executive at Beattie Group in Leeds, working on brands like Marks & Spencer, Specsavers and easyJet. From there I moved in-house to Morrison Supermarkets as a press officer, a fast-paced press office, working across food and drink, home and leisure, and health and beauty, measuring everything in AVE, the old advertising-value-equivalent metric that made press cuttings look tidy on a spreadsheet but never quite captured what coverage was actually worth.
After a year of that, I could see PR was starting to overlap with SEO in ways not many people were talking about yet, so I then spent over six years working up to Head of PR at digital marketing agency Stickyeyes. That’s where I launched Best British Bloggers in 2011, one of the UK’s first influencer marketing services, which grew to cover more than 20 brands across Europe. I supported European PR and social strategy for Hertz and Staples, led a team of account managers and executives, and picked up a UK Search Award for a Motors.co.uk campaign along the way, working across clients including Hilton Worldwide, MTV, GSK, Converse, Tesco Bank and AO.com.
A year as director at a PR agency followed, working with brands like Heineken-owned BeerWulf.com, the Royal Mint and Moorhouse’s Brewery, before I went independent in 2018 as a fractional digital PR director. Since then I’ve worked across fintech, the pet and vet industry, online retail, children’s play equipment, ticketing and luxury travel, plus sharing my experience with agencies. I’m consistantly earning coverage for clients on high authority broadcast and online media including ITV’s This Morning, the Guardian, HuffPost, The Times and the Daily Mail.
If you’re wondering why quite a few of my clients happen to be pet brands, that’s not an accident. I ran a dog advice website, GoMutts.com (formerly Velcrodog.co.uk), for thirteen years, about owning my Dobermann, Lupo, in the same way mums were writing about parenting. I currently volunteer with Pets As Therapy, taking my Labrador Hallie to visit organisations where a bit of time with a dog can genuinely turn someone’s day around.
If you’re building something and want the world to know about it, I’d love to hear from you. Connect with me on LinkedIn or get in touch to talk through what your story could look like.