Platinum: The CIPR Turns 70

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The latest release from the industry body is Platinum, a celebration of 70 years of the CIPR. It boasts a host of accomplished PR practitioners and academics among its authors, including Stephen Waddington, Anne Gregory, Jenni Field, Richard Bailey, Heather Yaxley, Sarah Hall,  and Jon White. It has an impressive 45 chapters covering a wide range of subjects including professional qualifications, AI, fake news, and measurement.

CIPR Platinum AuthorsAt last night’s launch a number of the contributors took to the stage to celebrate it being published, and the CIPR’s 70 and 70 list, which includes many of Platinum’s authors.

Given my background working in the diversity space, and the recent launch of my own business to help comms companies tackle diversity in their organisations, of particular interest to me were chapters 42 and 43, which focused on diversity in the industry.

Academic, Liz Bridgen, focuses on whether efforts to address diversity in the PR industry are having an impact, and in particular focused on the work of the Taylor Bennett Foundation though a number of interviews with alumni.

Bridgen starts with the (very good!) argument that diversity makes both business and moral sense, and questions what the industry is then doing to address this. She points out that the Foundation provides knowledge, skills and opportunities to BAME graduates and that alumni from the programme (quite rightly, in my opinion) view themselves as assets to an employer.

She also discusses issues of barriers to promotion and whether power to make hiring and promotion decisions is key to changing the ethnic diversity of the industry, with the alumni themselves recognising that becoming decision makers would give them much more influence.

“A common view was that once young BAME practitioners reached management roles, hiring practices would change and the industry would become more diverse.”

Liz concludes that despite the Foundation’s work there’s a way to go for the broader PR industry to be more ethnically diverse. I couldn’t agree more.

“It is undeniable that the Taylor Bennett Foundation training programme has helped practitioners access and become established in PR careers. However, the industry itself is still overwhelmingly white and middle class and tends to hire its own kind.”

Chapter 43, by Curzon PR MD Farzana Baduel, continues the theme of the value of diversity with an essay on global integration. She draws together the themes of technology and global markets to argue that teams become more diverse in cross country teams,

Like Bridgen, she explains that diversity is not just a moral imperative, it makes great business sense.

“McKinsey found that ‘gender-diverse companies were 15% more likely to outperform, whereas ethnically diverse companies were 35% more likely to outperform and therefore has become an economic driver’”

The CIPR’s drive towards a more diverse industry has taken a noticeable push under the leadership of current President, Sarah Hall who appointed the most diverse board the body has ever had. With Emma Leech taking up the presidency in 2019, and Jenni Field in 2020, I very much hope that continues. As Platinum illustrates, the benefits of diversity for the industry are numerous but addressing the issue takes action.

If you fancy hearing a bit more about the challenges around diversity and inclusion in PR, this recent Digital Download podcast by Paul Sutton with Sara Hawthorn is worth a listen too.

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Be kind, nothing else matters

taylor bennett foundation alumniYesterday I said goodbye to the Taylor Bennett Foundation at a gin fuelled evening. Here’s what I said in my speech (minus the tears):

Yesterday I saw a LinkedIn update by Zubair Ahmed, who had just started a new job as Creative Director at Interventus. Zubair was part of the first group of trainees that went through the Foundation’s PR traineeship programme – and we also happened to grow up in the same town and went to the same school so I always felt an affinity with him.

That first group of trainees taught me a lesson I have never forgotten.

In week eight of the traineeship the graduates have to write appraisals of themselves and their colleagues. It’s possibly the hardest task they have to do in the entire ten weeks. As I was reading this group’s appraisals I realised that one of the trainees (not Zubair!) has plagiarised another’s work.

I went digging around on our network to look at his previous work and noticed that of the six trainees, he was the only one to save his work on the shared drive. The others all kept their documents on memory sticks.

I was really, really cross with him. It was the first time we’d ever run a programme. We’d been so lucky to get Brunswick on board to sponsor it and they had put so much time and effort into these young people. He had possibly jeopardised them ever wanting to be involved with us again, and robbed future graduates of the chance of a place on another programme.

We decided to speak to the other trainees to find out what they knew, and it turned out they had realised in about week 2 that he had been copying their work. When I asked them why they hadn’t brought it to our attention they said ‘because we wanted to be kind to him.’

We allowed him to finish the programme, and never told Brunswick (until now!) what had happened. He left the UK without a reference from us and we’ve never heard from him since, but I am convinced we did the right thing and he learned a very harsh lesson about honesty, authenticity, and the kindness of other people.

That act of generosity by the trainees – who we had expected to ask us to kick him off the programme – has stayed with me for the entire 11 years that I was at the Foundation.

I have learned many, many things from our graduate alumni over the years, but the gift of kindness is a precious thing indeed. If you can be kind, nothing else really matters.

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Launching Ladder Talent

Ladder Talent Business CardToday I’ve launched a new venture, Ladder Talent. A people consultancy for the creative industries.

Over the past decade I’ve had the privilege of meeting a large number of employers across the creative industries and their struggles have remained pretty consistent; how to develop staff, how to retain them, and how to improve their diversity.

With Ladder Talent I’m aiming to address all those issues with a mixture of training, coaching and diversity consultancy. I can’t do all of that alone, so I’ve pulled together of amazing people from the media and creative industries as coaches and trainers.

You can read more about Ladder Talent and some other passion projects here.

If you’d like to have a chat about how we can help you, get in touch.

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Leaving the Taylor Bennett Foundation

Taylor Bennett Foundation Alumni and Sarah StimsonToday we announced that I will be leaving the Taylor Bennett Foundation at the end of October 2018. I have been there since the very first meeting about it between the Foundation’s visionary founder, Heather McGregor, and the then director of employability at the University of East London (and, still, trustee of the Foundation) Femi Bola in 2007.

At the time I was running a small recruitment agency in the Taylor Bennett Group. That company, Unicorn, still exists today and the Foundation started as a small social good programme on the side. Within two years the traineeship we’d devised and ran, initially with Brunswick, took more of my time than Unicorn did and we hired someone else to run Unicorn so that I could develop the training in more depth.

My responsibility was to support the trainees who came through the programme with their aim to be as employable as possible in the world of communications, without stripping them of their individuality and ethnic identity.

In 2013 we became a charity and in at the end of 2016 I stepped up into the CEO role when the previous executive director moved on. My focus switched from developing the programme and teaching the trainees, to the sustainability and growth of the organisation.

It was a massive learning curve and I knew I would have knowledge gaps so at the same time as taking the new job, I also started an MSc in Charity Marketing and Fundraising at Cass Business School – which I will finish next month.

I took the CEO position with several goals in mind:

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Senior PR people : share your platform and make a difference

I am meant to be revising for the last exam for my masters (it’s accountancy, ugh), and so of course got sucked into YouTube where I found this video of Pink watching other people play covers of her songs. It’s fabulous to watch. Her genuinely astonished reactions (and then the reactions of the people watching her, watching them) are really delightful.

The thrill of having someone they admire comment on what they’d done is visible, and heartwarming.

It reminded me of the CIPR Awards dinner recently where current President, Sarah Hall, took a selfie with a young PR practitioner, Olivia Shalofsky (currently an up and coming PR intern at Direct Line).

I saw Olivia’s follow up reaction to that tweet. She was absolutely thrilled to have been noticed by Sarah and included in that picture.

I also spotted this mention of Ketchum CEO, Jo-ann Robertson, from Taylor Bennett Foundation alumni Yarohey Sekha. Yarohey is currently one of the mentees on the BME PR Pros scheme and in her profile piece on their website said how influenced she’d been by meeting Jo-ann on a visit to Ketchum as part of the Foundation’s programme.

For Sarah and Jo-ann these were instances where they were automatically kind and generous, but probably didn’t think much about it after the event. Yet to Olivia and Yarohey these were incredibly important events which had lasting effects.

We shouldn’t under estimate the influence senior practitioners have over those people who are new to the industry. So if you have the opportunity to be kind, generous, and share a platform then do – you could make a world of difference.

 

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Opening the door can have a huge impact

My dad died two years ago at the age of 65. He could be a difficult man and I often see some of his not so pleasant traits in me – pig headedness, competitiveness, and a need to be in control. But he could also be kind, generous, and mischievous.

He was wired that way for good reason. As a toddler he had polio (anti-vaxxers, stay away because I will not entertain your rubbish – a vaccine would have improved his life – and lengthened it – immeasurably). As a result, his right leg didn’t work, he wore a calliper and in the final years of his life was confined to a wheelchair permanently. He knew that the odds were stacked against him and when that happens being pig headed is an asset.

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6 ways to work with the Taylor Bennett Foundation

If you’re an employer in comms and PR, either agency side or in-house, it’s likely that diversity is up there on your corporate agenda.

I’ve written before on different initiatives which can help you tackle diversity issues in your organisation and thought now might be a good time to highlight all the ways you could get involved specifically with the Taylor Bennett Foundation.

The Taylor Bennett Foundation was established in 2007 to improve access to the PR industry for young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME). We do this through an award-winning ten week traineeship programme, mentoring, and summer internship placements. Over 150 PR employers support these programmes by donating, hosting visits, offering mentors, and offering work placements.

Sponsoring a programme
Each year we run a number of 10 week PR traineeship programmes for BAME graduates. 97% of our alumni are employed and over 60% work in communications. These programmes are a large commitment for the sponsors which previously include Brunswick, Finsbury, FTI Consulting, Talk PR, Edelman, MHP, The Red Consultancy, Charlotte Street Partners, and Standard Life Aberdeen.
If you would like to discuss sponsoring one of these programmes email

There are also a number of other ways to get involved:

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