Judges

A former journalist with 30 years’ experience across PR and communications, Andrew is passionate about positioning brands wanting to make a positive impact on the world. From discovering trends for market growth to developing corridors for international expansion, Andrew supports business leaders in creating plans and strategies that engage audiences, build trust, and strengthen brand reputation.

Anna Geffert founded HERA in 2019. Her career spans two decades in PR, working for international PR agencies and high-profile business and brands.

Throughout her career, Anna has worked across consumer, corporate and financial PR, capital markets and research for brands ranging from FTSE businesses to start-ups.

Anna is a leading figure within the PR industry, voted as President of Women in PR, has appeared in the PRWeek PowerBook for four consecutive years, sits on the Board of Global Women in PR, is a Fellow of the Public Relations & Communications Association (PRCA) and was a Trustee for the Haemophilia Society.

Billy is the MD of award-winning Aro PR and Marketing. Aro is a specialist agency for engineering and scientific SMEs, helping its clients increase understanding of their capabilities and increase sales. He has worked with some of the leading organisations in the private, public and voluntary sectors, including Unilever, Rolls Royce, HM Treasury, Shelter and JJ Churchill. Billy specialises in translating complex technical issues into easily understood stories across all channels. That’s what gets him up in the morning.

He is a member of the PRCA’s South West Committee.

Christopher oversees FleishmanHillard UK’s Creative Impact team, responsible for putting client impact at the heart of our work.

His work includes leading creative campaigns for the World Food Programme, First National Bank, Philips and Thomson Reuters. Christopher also sits on the Creative UK Council and PRCA Membership Committee.

For 8 years, Dani has been delivering award-winning integrated campaigns for a range of public sector, consumer and third sector clients across Wales and the UK, including Bluestone, Visit Wales, Universities Wales, FOR Cardiff and the Welsh Government. Dani also brought her expertise to Wales’ leading children’s charity, Ty Hafan, heading up the PR efforts. Dani now juggles a portfolio of behavioural change public sector campaigns and exciting consumer accounts at Golley Slater where her creative PR campaigns are far-reaching and inspire action.

Devan LaBrash is an account director at Pagoda PR in Edinburgh. She has more than a decade of experience working across sectors including manufacturing, construction, energy, healthcare, and food and nutrition in both Canada and the UK. She supported national consumer marketing campaigns for clients including McDonald’s Canada and Weight Watchers at Weber Shandwick in Toronto before joining Pagoda in 2013. Since then, she has led on many of the consultancy’s B2B accounts, including Element Materials Technology, Howden, and the Donaldson Group, and consumer campaigns for organisations like Gore, National Museums Scotland, Forestry and Land Scotland, The Scotch Whisky Experience, and the Scottish Seabird Centre. She was also the project lead for Pagoda’s PRCA Dare Award-winning campaign with NHS Lanarkshire.

Strongly committed to proving results for clients, Devan leads the business’ evaluation and reporting processes and is always looking for new ways to demonstrate measurable success.

An experienced agency leader, with 12+ years in the industry supporting clients across all aspects of the B2B, corporate and tech marcomms space. Recently appointed to the PRCA’s B2B Committee in January as well as joining the 2023 mentee cohort for the Taylor Bennett Foundation reverse mentoring scheme.

Elizabeth takes a creative and ambitious approach to all work, overseeing brand perception strategies and managing reputation-critical issues for globally renowned organisations. Being insight-led and outcome-driven, this focus has delivered game-changing business results for start-ups through to listed businesses.

Leading the fantastic team at With, Elizabeth continues to oversee the growth of the specialist agency into its next chapter.

Having been involved in politics for 25 years as both a professional campaigner and an elected representative, I now run Keystone Consulting. We provide strategic advice to ensure all organisations can influence their political environment. Main areas of specialism include education, tax, retail, justice, freight, classic cars, and technology.

James Crawford FPRCA is the Managing Director of PR Agency One, a public relations firm known for its innovative approach to delivering creative effectiveness since its inception in 2011.

Based in Manchester and London with a reputation for excellence across the public relations industry. PR Agency One has garnered numerous accolades, including being named Mid-Sized Consultancy of the Year by the PRCA for 2023/24 and 2021/24, Independent Agency of the Year for 2019/20, Technology PR Agency of the Year for 2019/20, and CIPR Outstanding PR Consultancy of the Year for 2016/2017. James is also a board director at AMEC.

Jessica has over ten years’ experience working within public relations across a wide range of sectors from education, hospitality to the packaging and manufacturing industries in Europe, including well-known names Sidel and Tata Steel.

Recipient of the 2016 Outstanding Young Communicator award, her experience spans both business-to-business and business-to-consumer. With a focus on sustainability and positive behaviour change, Jessica creates compelling strategic campaigns that engages audiences and contributes to making the world a better place.

Jim Pople is the Senior PR Director at disruptive-tech PR agency, C8 Consulting. He has over 10 years of experience in public relations, in which time he has worked across a variety of clients in the motorsport, automotive, events, technology, and cybersecurity sectors. Jim has developed strong client, team, and media relationships, enabling him to deliver successful campaigns in the past decade.

Kate is associate director at global award-winning communications consultancy, Liquid.

An experienced marketing communications professional, she has worked across consumer, B2B and public sector over the last 15 years, providing creative integrated solutions that deliver results. She specialises in driving behaviour change and perception, from increasing physical activity with multiple national governing bodies of sport, educating businesses on the benefits of 5G, to increasing the exports of pure Canadian maple syrup and encouraging increased use of public transport.

Kate believes in having an honest but supportive approach to guiding her clients, helping them to define their proposition and recommending the best channels and tactics to deliver results. She has a passion for understanding how businesses work, being curious and asking the difficult questions to get to the root of challenges and identifying opportunities.

Kelly is Managing Director of award-winning agency Speed. Redefining PR in an age of earned reputation and earned trust, Speed is the largest PR agency in the South West helping its clients build brands and reputations, drive growth and inspire and engage.

An experienced communications specialist with over two decades of experience, she has worked across a myriad of sectors with market leaders and challenger brands from Grant Thornton, Virgin Media and Barclaycard to Nestlé, D S Smith, RAC and Aviva.

Her specialist skills include strategic communication consultancy, issues-based PR, ESG comms, influencer and stakeholder engagement, industry thought leadership and multi-channel content strategies. Kelly is passionate about the Power of PR to connect people and effect positive change.

She is South West Chair and a Fellow of the PRCA.

Laura joined Auto Trader in 2015 at the time the business was listing on the London Stock Exchange. She’s responsible for the Company’s external communication and government and stakeholder engagement programme, supporting the business’s purpose to drive change together, responsibly. Since the Government announced the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles, Laura and the team have been actively sharing consumer data and broader insights to support the industry, consumers and the government with the transition to electric vehicles.

Laura’s a strategic and results-driven communications leader, with extensive in-house and communication agency experience across an array of sectors focused on: strategy development, media outreach, crisis management, investor relations, public affairs, change management, employee engagement, digital activations, and event management. Laura has worked with brands spanning many sectors including: Manpower, Heineken, Tilda, Tyrrells, FedEx, Unilever, Tesco, Jacques Vert Group, Blenheim Palace, and Global Vision International.

Leigh is the Founder and Managing Director of Evergreen PR, a specialist health communications agency that is focused on improving health by achieving measurable outcomes.

A Chartered PR professional, Leigh has worked in health PR and communications for 20 years and is a former PRCA DARE Awards ‘Professional of the Year’.

Leigh has worked with Government agencies, NHS England, royal colleges, universities, health charities and businesses to help them generate outcomes from their health communications and, since founding Evergreen PR in late 2019, has celebrated more than 30 industry award wins as a result of the agency’s impact.

Lorna is a Shareholder Director of DTW; she is an experienced project manager and design professional with over 24 years’ experience, specialising in developing and implementing creative and digital campaigns.

Lorna leads the creative and design team at DTW. Her ability to look at offline and digital platforms from a customer perspective, combined with design flair and an excellent level of understanding of the practicalities of print and digital production, brings added value to our client’s work.

Lorna loves trying new things and you’ll often find her exploring the great outdoors and taking on new challenges on one of her many adventure weekends from stilt walking to tree climbing. She also values spending time with her teenage daughter and visiting family in Ireland. When it’s time to unwind, you will find her on the dance floor or in a yoga studio.

Mark Terry is Chief Vision Officer at NEO, the business creative agency he co-founded.

A creative director with 20 years’ experience, Mark has evolved NEO to be about more than developing original B2B communications. Shaped around the principle that creativity is a catalyst for connecting people with ideas, NEO acts as both a fractional and white label creative agency for PR companies among others. Before NEO, Mark was chief creative at Mintel, which became a Business Superbrand during his tenure. He also worked with leading B2C brands including Barclays, Sony and Unilever. Mark sits on the PRCA B2B Committee.

Michael Lavery is an international brand and marcomms consultant and a former adviser to the House of Lords.

With a career in agency, retail, education, and non-profit MarComms, he established Brand & Reputation – an award-winning consultancy – in 2017.  Michael’s career as a consultant has included work with prestigious clients including Oxford, UCL, MIT, Manchester, and Edinburgh universities, UNICEF, The NHS, Cancer Research UK, Costa, Audi, and Deutsche Bank.

He has chaired national and global networks, secured a number of prestigious awards and thought leadership contributions worldwide, and is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the RSA.

A reputation and communications specialist, Nathalie Agnew launched Muckle Media in 2012 following a long career supporting some of the world’s biggest brands for London agencies. A former Fleishman-Hillard and Porter Novelli senior international PR advisor, Nathalie has significant experience across many sectors and has led her team at Muckle Media Group to win numerous awards in recent years, the most notable being the CIPR Scotland PRide Outstanding PR Consultancy award in 2023 and the PRCA DARE Large Agency of the Year in 2021.

Nathalie also led the agency to become the first B-Corp PR agency in Scotland. Nathalie is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and a member of the PRCA and the Marketing Society. Nathalie chairs the Institute of Directors Edinburgh and Lothians branch.

Nikki is responsible for the overall success of Meeting Place. She devises the companies vision, mission and strategy to ensure that products and services not only deliver value for clients but also innovation and better planning outcomes for the built environment sector.

Nikki joined Meeting Place in 2011 in the most junior of roles. She has since worked her way up the business, delivering community and political engagement strategies for every facet of the built environment across the country. Nikki is passionate about social value and has been pioneering Meeting Place’s products and services in this field.

Pavan started her career in advertising agencies and then moved client side, working in Head of Marketing roles at Morrisons, Poundland and Coop.

Pavan has now returned to her agency roots as CEO and founder of We are The Allies, a network of over 500 creative freelancers, covering every creative discipline. Allies helps agencies and clients in the creative sector find the best freelance talent for their brief.

Russell is an award-winning marketing and communications professional with over 20 years of experience in crafting, executing, and evaluating high-impact communications campaigns across the island of Ireland.

Known for his innovative ideas and strategic out-of-the-box thinking, Russell has consistently delivered key objectives for brands, companies, events, and information campaigns. With a creative flair for producing compelling, message-driven written, video, and image-led content, Russell excels in building brands, influencing behaviour, and driving consumer engagement through strategically researched integrated communications.

Ross has more than 20 years of experience in media, communications, and marketing. After a degree in journalism from the University of the Arts London, he first worked on the publishing industry’s weekly magazine The Bookseller before joining Holyrood magazine in Edinburgh. Following a spell at a creative SEO agency devising online campaigns for big name retailers and travel companies, he joined Edinburgh Napier University to lead on their flagship publications. In a decade at the university, he has gone on to manage corporate communications, international marketing and is now Head of Communications. In this role, he has responsibility for press and PR, communications to 2,000 staff and 20,000 students, the university’s corporate social media channels, and numerous corporate and student events and experiences. He has also spearheaded award-winning campaigns such as #NapierNames, which celebrated Edinburgh Napier’s graduates across the city when in-person graduations were not possible.

Simon is a highly experienced PR and communications professional and CEO of Freshfield, an award-winning North West PR and communications consultancy.

He has over 20 years’ experience working with business owners, boards and marketing teams, helping them shape and implement impactful communications strategies and campaigns.

Freshfield has offices in Lancashire and Manchester and delivers consultancy and campaigns to industry-leading clients in the advanced manufacturing, energy, financial services, professional services, property and regeneration, and public sectors.

www.freshfield.com

Sophie is co-founder of LionbridgePR a boutique PR agency in Stamford.

Sophie has 30 years experience in PR working agency-side.  Prior to setting up LionbridgePR, Sophie was Director of Operations Ogilvy Health PR.  Sophie is passionate about providing creative and pragmatic solutions for brands that are game changing but also deliverable.

With nearly 20 years of invaluable experience in the criminal justice sector, Victoria Wiseman stands as a formidable figure in her role as the Head of Communications for Wales within the HM Prison and Probation Service. Demonstrating exceptional leadership, she has spearheaded both external and staff communications efforts, navigating the complexities of a devolved, bilingual landscape with finesse. Victoria’s strategic acumen is evident in her successful development of media and social media strategies, notably increasing brand awareness with a focus on offender employment in Wales.

Victoria is a highly motivated professional committed to elevating the HMPPS’s brand image and fostering meaningful engagements across Wales.