PRWeek UK and the PRCA Creative Group have launched a major new mentoring scheme to encourage and nurture creative talent in the PR industry.
Successful applicants for the Creative Mentoring Project will be matched with one of our contingent of mentors – all experienced PR creative directors – who will offer guidance through face-to-face meetings and other forms of contact. Entry is via an application form.
The offer is open to UK-based PR professionals with a minimum of three years’ experience who see themselves as a creative director in the future. Successful applicants or their employers will need to be PRWeek subscribers and PRCA members.
The deadline for submission of entries and references is 5pm on Monday 17 September.
Nick Woods, Creative Partner, Well Hello, and Co-Chairman, PRCA Creative Group, said: “Creative directors now play a vital role in many of our leading agencies. Their originality, imagination and persuasive abilities are worth their weight in gold to their agencies and for good reason. They are often fundamental to solving client issues of all shapes, sizes and flavours, to the delivery of work which has enormous commercial impact and which is often central to agency fame. And yet ‘creative training’ too often seems to be how best to run a brainstorm, which is a bit different to one-on-one mentoring for a year from a leading industry figure.”
Jo Chappel, Creative Board Director, Fever PR, said: “Pretty much everyone we asked to be a mentor said yes straight away because there is real appetite to help the next generation up what can sometimes be a tricky ladder to climb. For PR to be truly representative of the world we’re living in we need to attract more diverse talent into creative roles within the industry and we hope that this scheme is one small but significant step in achieving this.”
John Harrington, Deputy Editor, PRWeek UK, said: “UK PR is full of hugely creative individuals who are changing our industry and helping it compete with, and in many places surpass other marcoms disciplines. PRWeek is determined to help the next generation of creative PR stars reach their potential.”
Click here to access the form.
Full list of mentors:
- Chris Bamford (Freuds)
- Jo Chappel (Fever)
- Julian Cirrone (M&C Saatchi)
- Esin Cittone (Edelman)
- Dan Glover (The Academy)
- Chris Grabowski (Cirkle)
- Stuart Hehir (Pegasus)
- Greg Jones (Mischief)
- Lotte Jones (Freuds)
- Gavin Lewis (Hope & Glory)
- Joe Mackay-Sinclair (The Romans)
- Shirin Majid (Cake)
- Blair Metcalfe (The Agency Partnership)
- Simon Moore (Ketchum & Porter Novelli)
- Leila Mountford (Amnesty International)
- Peter Mountstevens (Taylor Herring)
- Mark Perkins (W)
- Damon Statt (Mischief)
- Kat Thomas (One Green Bean)
- Gemma Vardon (Golin)
- Matt Wilcock (Cow PR)
- Alex Wood (Golin)
- Nick Woods (Well Hello)
- Stuart Yeardsley (Three Monkeys Zeno)
