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Women in PR and PR Week announce 2018 mentees

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Written by Women in PR


Nicky-and-George

Women in PR is delighted to announce the 2018 list of mentees for the Women in PR/PR Week Mentoring Scheme. We run this scheme to help mid-level career women overcome challenges and get to the very top, supporting our mission to increase the number of female leaders in the UK PR industry.

This year we received more entries than ever before. This is the fifth year we have run this initiative, which has seen 60 women successfully complete the programme. The list of mentees and who they will be mentored by is as follows:

 

Mentee

Mentor

Michaela Gray

Corporate PR Account Director, Golin

Deborah Saw

Vice Chair and Senior Partner, Newgate
Communications

Navprit Rai

Communications Manager, Trust for London

Christina Kelly

Director of Corporate Affairs, Clydesdale
Bank

Chrissie Cooper

Associate Director, Fever

Molly Aldridge

Global CEO, M&C Saatchi PR

Alison Hicks

Associate Director, business and
corporate, Four Communications

Maria Darby-Walker

NED and Executive Coach

Alicia Solanki

Practice Director, Ketchum

Tanya Ridd

Director of Communications for EMEA,
Snapchat

Brooke Kenyon

Managing Director, Orchard PR

Ginny Paton

Director, Mischief (former MD of House
PR)

Surinder Sian

PR & Communications Manager, Linklaters

Gay Collins

Founding Partner, Montfort Communications

Heather Iqbal

Senior Comms
Advisor, Global Witness

Jennifer Thomas

Head of internal comms
and customer experience, Direct Line Group

Alex Birch

Director of Client Services, Clarity PR

Jo-ann Robertson

CEO, Ketchum London

Lucy Newson

Business Director, Karmarama

Rachel Bell

Chairman, The Academy

Melissa Robinson

Director, Frank PR

Rachel Friend

UK CEO, Weber Shandwick

Emma Duke

Head of Communications, Oxford University
Press

Nicola Green

Director of Corporate Affairs, O2

Elizabeth Wilmshurst

Managing Director, The Clever Comms Co

Misha Dhanak

Founder & CEO, The Romans

Ellen Carroll

Director, Nellie PR

Shelley Facius

Founder & director, Juice PR

Jo Hooper

Head of Communications, Which?

Ali Jeremy

Director of communications at NSPCC

Our judging panel was comprised of five senior women from the WPR Committee whose experience spans across in-house, agency and freelance. Our President was not involved in the judging process. The judges were reviewing the entries against three key criteria:

  1. Future leadership potential
  2. Evidence of industry engagement and demonstrable impact
  3. Clear objectives for career and rationale for needing a mentor at this point in time

The mentees are a very diverse group. We have women from corporate environments, working for big law firms such as Linklaters and also NGOs and charities such as Global Witness. The agency world is well represented with applicants from large (Ketchum, Four) and small (Orchard PR) firms alike, including two agency owners. We also have a freelance consultant with big ambitions to build up her freelance business.

We’ve paired the mentees with the best person from our mentor group to work through their career challenges and help them realise their aspirations.

The mentees will be writing stories for our blog throughout the year to share the journey. If you are interested in applying for a place on next year’s scheme, please follow us on Twitter @WIPRUK to receive information about the application process and deadline.

 

Nicky Imrie and George Blizzard
Co-Founders, The PR Network
Mentoring Programme Leads

 


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