Published 20th Mar 2019
London: 15th March 2019 – WPR UK launched the Women in PR and PR Week Mentoring Programme.
The scheme has been running since 2014 and 75 women will have completed the programme by the end of May 2019. Applications from candidates come with a huge array of experience and backgrounds, all with high aspirations for their PR career. They recognise that they will benefit from experienced counsel in order to get to the next level, whether they are at middle management level in agency, or perhaps a PR manager working in-house.
We have a fantastic wealth of experience within our mentoring board, which this year includes four new faces:
- Doyel Maitra, Head of PR and Consumer Affairs, MoneySupermarket
- Emily Morgan, MD, the Red Consultancy
- Michele Moore, Senior PR Manager, Cap Gemini
- Sarah Samee, Head of Communications, CIFAS
The full mentor list is below. We have built the board to reflect the UK PR community, with a broad mix of industries, backgrounds and organisational experience to bring to bear on our mentees’ challenges.
Mentee alumni include Zoe Melarkey, formerly head of PR for npower and now head of communications at Purplebricks, who says,
“It was fantastic having a mentor who was outside of my organisation and as such could give me perspective, which is very difficult to obtain from peers and sponsors within your own business. Jennifer also has two boys like me and was able to be highly empathetic regarding juggling a big job and family life. I was impressed by how closely the WPR committee matched me with a mentor who was right for me, given she was also another female leader in a very male-dominated industry.”
2019/2020 Mentoring Board
- Rachel Friend – UK CEO, Weber (Agency),
- Rachel Bell – Chairman, The Academy (Agency)
- Misha Dhanak – Founder & CEO, The Romans (Agency)
- Gay Collins – CEO, Montfort (Agency)
- Tanya Ridd – Director of Comms for EMEA, Snap (In-house)
- Jennifer Thomas – Head of Internal Comms, Direct Line (In-house)
- Deborah Saw – Vice chair and Senior Partner, Newgate (Agency)
- Ali Jeremy – Director of Comms, NSPCC (In-house)
- Ginny Paton – Director, Mischief (Agency)
- Molly Aldridge – Global CEO, M&C Saatchi (Agency)
- Nicola Green – Director of Corporate Affairs, O2 (In-house)
- Doyel Maitra – Head of PR and Consumer Affairs, Money Supermarket (In-house)
- Emily Morgan – MD, Consumer, The Red Consultancy (Agency)
- Michele Moore – Senior PR Manager, Cap Gemini (In-house)
- Sarah Samee – Head of Communications, CIFAS (In-house)
