Judges – 23

Nikki is the Managing Director of MPC. Having started at the company as an account executive, she has spent the last 10 years working through every position within the business gaining valuable on the ground experience of running tailored programmes of community and stakeholder engagement. Current clients including Homes England, Legal and General Investment Management and the Herts Growth Board. Nikki is also pioneering MPC’s products and services in the social value field.

Managing Director at Richmond & Towers, a brand communications agency with a ‘no BS‘ approach to PR & Digital – and everything in between, Matt is an experienced brand communications strategist with almost 25 years’ industry experience.
He has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands including Coca-Cola, Estrella Damm, Ford, Diageo, Shell, Reebok, and Samsung, and has built a reputation for giving honest advice, challenging conventional thinking, and leading teams that deliver fantastic results.

Alex is a seasoned PR professional and agency leader with 15 years’ experience advising disruptors and innovators on their communications strategies. An alumni of PR Week’s 30 Under 30, she leads Antidote Communications, a data-driven comms agency for B2B and corporate brands. Having spent her earlier career in the fast-paced world of technology working with the likes of Huawei, BlackBerry and LinkedIn, she now applies her expertise to clients across a range of different sectors including ecommerce, professional services and innovation. She is passionate about creating a people-first culture at Antidote and building an agency where people love to come to work.

Senior Communications Adviser at the North East LEP, Nicola McIntosh is an experienced strategic comms specialist, having worked in the industry for over 20 years. At the age of 28, Nicola was named PR Professional of the Year by the North East Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Today, her career has come full circle – having started out working on public relations for a local economic regeneration team, Nicola moved into tourism comms and then health and life sciences before her role at the North East LEP saw her return to her early love of economic development. In addition to leading on internal communications, she now works closely with the energy, innovation and investment teams to showcase the regional partnership initiatives that are helping to create more and better jobs for the people of the North East.

Colin is the ECD and co-owner at Bottle. He leads the Planning and Creative teams; improving insights, ideas and measurement for their Fame and Findability mission.

His 10 years at Bottle follow a zig-zaggy career trajectory from Army Officer, to Unilever, and then taking own start-up confectionery brand from Borough Market to national supermarket distribution. That’s why he loves to salute a sweet PR campaign that can outflank competitors and prove growth impact.

Ellen is joint managing director of Red Lion, a consumer PR agency that launched in early 2020. Red Lion combines outstanding media relations with creative flair for start-ups, scale ups and challenger brands, and already has an impressive client list including Habitat, Campari Rare portfolio and wellness start-ups Monk and Joii. Ellen previously spent almost eight years at Hope&Glory where she headed up accounts including Airbnb, adidas and Virgin Active.

Jessica is Deputy Managing Director at Resonance, a specialist B2B tech communications consultancy that’s built for the data economy. With over 12 years of PR experience across a range of B2B organisations within the technology, retail, finance, and healthcare sectors, she has worked with innovative start-ups, through to global blue-chip companies.

Chris has a background in consumer PR working on creative campaigns with agencies including PrettyGreen, The PHA group and Karmarama, for brands including Three Mobile, Vauxhall Motors and Disney. Chris joined Muckle Media in 2021, helping the agency win a number of awards including PRCA DARE Large Agency of the Year award in 2022. Chris has a passion for impactful creative campaigns that deliver against objectives.

Richard is the founder of Stone Junction, a STEM PR agency based in Stafford, Munich and Romania, and working internationally. The company handles the PR for 53 businesses, based in dozens of countries around the world and has won 40 awards for that work since 2015, including six in 2022.

Since 2018 Stone Junction has been the CIPR or PRCA outstanding consultancy in the Midlands six times, having grown at a year-on-year rate of forty-three per cent for more than a decade. In fact, the company is growing so fast, and doing so much cool stuff, that PR Week named it as an agency to watch in its 2018, and top 50 tech and top 150 overall agency in every year since.

Richard is a chartered PR practitioner, former chair of the CIPR in the Midlands and in 2019, was named in the CIPR’s ’70 at 70′ list of the UK’s most influential public relations practitioners. In 2021, Propel listed him in its 100 most influential tech PR people in the world.

Chartered Marketer, Senior Lecturer (FHEA) and University Programme Leader for BA(Hons) PR and Marketing and BA(Hons) Advertising and Brand Communications. My industry career spans three decades honed with, Luxury Publishing giant, Conde Nast Publishing, world icon BBC Worldwide and internationally focused: Newsweek Int, NPI Luxury Publishing UAE. Partnership Director for Canadian experiential Fleurs de Villes and FDI focused, Global Trade Development Week Event, UAE. Charismatic Leader with a clear vision for accelerating quality learning, development of industry rising star talent and setting industry, gold standards. A mum with heartfelt passion for responsible marketing and championing planetary sustainability for our future generations. I love photography, travel, interior design and architecture…and food (of course!)

Lauren runs the press team that promotes the work of one of the world’s largest consumer co-operatives and leads on reputation management for Co-op’s Life Services businesses. This includes the UK’s leading funeral provider as well as Co-op’s Insurance and Legal Services brands.

Campaigns Lauren has led have won multiple awards, she is also a member of the PRCA’s North West Committee and holds a CIPR Diploma in PR.

James founded Manchester and London based PR Agency One, which since its launch in 2012 has delivered ‘award winning work in the consumer and B2B/corporate sectors.

His company focuses on the space where creativity and measurement meet to deliver commercial outcomes. His business has won numerous national and international awards and accolades for its work in diverse categories, from best use of creativity, to measurement and insight.

He is also a board director at AMEC and runs a PR accelerator to help found new PR businesses which to date has founded PR two start-ups.

Vicky is the Senior PR Officer at Chester Zoo and covers everything from news stories and media relations, crisis communications and social media to managing film crews. After studying journalism university, she began my career in PR, communications and marketing. Most of her 10 years’ experience has been in in house teams at national charities, covering a range of topics from cooking, mental health and eye surgery to now conservation and preventing extinction.

Belle’s 20 years in marketing encompasses a broad range of sectors including hospitality, FMCG, travel, e-commerce and employer branding. Bringing a background of integrated marketing disciplines into IF, Belle now specialises in social strategy with a focus on B2C brands.

Clive is CEO of Birmingham based Reeves Media. A pragmatic and no-nonsense PR practitioner, long-time business leader and campaigner for the reintroduction of relationship building through the traditional medium of a long PR lunch.

Charlie Brooks is the Head of Communications for Populous, the world’s leading stadium and arena design practise. Operating at both EMEA and Global level, he is responsible for all elements of the company’s internal and external communications.

Charlie has extensive experience of all elements of PR, Media Relations and Marketing, with a particular focus on the world of sport. Prior to Populous he was Communications Director at Manchester United and previously held a wide variety of senior communications roles at Nike.

Jenny is Acting Managing Director at ADPR. She’s been in the industry for over 20 years and has done a bit of everything – from sport and leisure, marine, education tech, FMCG, home interest, consumer finance, film, TV, and gaming.

Having worked on both sides of the fence, in-house and within agency, Jenny is a master of campaign development, interpreting briefs and understanding exactly what clients need, their internal pressures and how to help them reach their business and communication goals.

As a geriatric millennial, she remembers the days of filing the transparencies and franking the press releases, likes to communicate to her team in gifs, wears her hair in a side parting and can’t quite let go of skinny jeans.

Tara Attfield-Tomes is a PR expert with over 15 years’ experience, both agency and client side. She’s Founder of award-winning Birmingham PR agency, EAST VILLAGE., working with brands that make people want to feel good. Tara is a mentor for Soho House Mentorship and the Help To Grow scheme, and a sought-after speaker.

Jenni has more than 15 years’ experience as a PR professional, delivering strategic campaigns for multiple global brands, holding roles across both agency and in-house positions.

Her experience spans across both consumer and B2B briefs, with expertise across multiple areas, including delivery of multi-channel campaigns, media relations, talent management, crisis comms, social and digital strategy,  event management, and ATL brand activity.

Jenni studied Public Relations with Marketing in Leeds and has since held roles with the NHS, Havas PR, Weber Shandwick, N Brown Group plc, Look Fantastic, and The Social PR. She now leads the team across the Manchester PR division at The BIG Partnership, with clients including On the Beach, George at Asda, Booking.com, Pall Mall Medical, PRIMAL Strength, NorthEdge, and The Cumberland Building Society.

Jen has more than 10 years’ agency experience, managing campaigns for some of the biggest UK and international brands across the private and public sectors.

Her expertise lies in the delivery of multi-channel campaigns, media relations, stakeholder outreach, influencer management, and events. She joined BIG Partnership in 2021 and her clients have included Dobbies Garden Centres, NatWest, Cameron House Resort, Glen Scotia, Littlemill, Business Gateway, Angus Soft Fruits and InterContinental Edinburgh The George.

Jen has a BA (Honours) degree from Edinburgh Napier University where she specialised in Communications, Advertising and PR.

Sophie is a Managing Partner at leading consumer agency Ready10, whose clients include the likes of McDonald’s, Paddy Power and Beko. She manages the day to day running of the agency with a focus on people and culture, as well as overseeing a broad client portfolio.