Melissa Carlile PR Account Executive
Your role as PR Account Executive
At a glance
- Reporting to: Matt Hicks, Head of Content & Strategy
- Location: Festival Park office.
- Contract type: Permanent contract.
- Holiday: 25 days in addition to Christmas shut down and bank holidays.
Brief overview
You’ll be supporting our experienced PR team across a wide range of B2B client accounts within a busy and fast paced agency environment.
This is a client facing role and as PR Account Executive you’ll be expected to play an active role in helping to ensure the smooth running of accounts, exceeding client expectations wherever possible.
We’re confident you’ll be a great asset to the team!
Some of your responsibilities will be:
- Delivering work to a high quality against client PR plans
- Managing media lists, forward features and calendars
- Participating in the creation of strategic and tactical plans for clients
- Supporting media and influencer outreach
- Managing multiple campaigns and clients on a daily basis
Training and development
We’ll support you to do your job the best you possibly can. We want you to constantly develop your skills and extend your potential. Professional development is an annual KPI for all our people, and you’ll receive a personal budget to spend on training to develop your skills.
Throughout the year, we also run general training courses open to clients and staff, on skills like proofreading, storytelling and presentation skills.
Every year, you’ll have a two-stage review. The first stage looks at the past year; the second stage looks at the year ahead. You’ll also have monthly one-to-ones with your manager to discuss any decisions or tasks you’ve struggled with, what work has interested you, what has gone well, and many other things.
We want you to grow and move beyond the role you are in. We want you to know the client and their market. And we want you to understand enough to challenge them.
Holidays and pension
Our standard holiday allowance is 25 days plus bank holidays. On top of this allowance we close for Christmas which depending how it falls, can mean an extra 3 or 4 days off a year!
Our charity work is time matched by the firm meaning that if you give up your own time to raise money for the chosen charity we will give you the time back.
Finally, because we want you to grow old comfortably, we pay 5% into a pension scheme.
Your space…
You will be sat downstairs
next to Maggie, a great spot
as it’s near to the tuck shop.
Your immediate team
Matt Hicks
HEAD OF CONTENT & STRATEGY
I head up the PR/content department as well as being responsible for the strategic input on our clients’ accounts. I will be your line manager at LS and you can ask me anything you’d like to know before you start. We’re already connected on LinkedIn.
Jo Holdcroft
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR
I oversee the Account Management team and also work on the day-to-day on a few of our clients, I enjoy the variety of work we do. Feel free to ask any questions or connect on LinkedIn.
Shah Miah
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
I’ve been working at Lesniak Swann since the start of the year, doing a similar role as yourself – I’ll be your ‘buddy’ and help you get started. Feel free to ask me anything and connect on LinkedIn.
Maggie Morrissey
SENIOR PR ACCOUNT MANAGER
As Senior PR Account Manager, I’m always looking for the next story for our clients, finding an angle that resonates with their audiences. I’ll be here to guide you through the world of PR. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Alex Swann
MANAGING DIRECTOR
As Managing Director of the agency, I oversee all aspects of the agency keeping a close eye on financials and the client relations. Get in touch on LinkedIn.
Matt Hicks
HEAD OF CONTENT & STRATEGY
Jo Holdcroft
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR
Shah Miah
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Maggie Morrissey
SENIOR PR ACCOUNT MANAGER
Alex Swann
MANAGING DIRECTOR
I head up the PR/content department as well as being responsible for the strategic input on our clients’ accounts. I will be your line manager at LS and you can ask me anything you’d like to know before you start. We’re already connected on LinkedIn.
I oversee the Account Management team and also work on the day-to-day on a few of our clients, I enjoy the variety of work we do. Feel free to ask any questions or connect on LinkedIn.
I’ve been working at Lesniak Swann since the start of the year, doing a similar role as yourself – I’ll be your ‘buddy’ and help you get started. Feel free to ask me anything and connect on LinkedIn.
As Senior PR Account Manager, I’m always looking for the next story for our clients, finding an angle that resonates with their audiences. I’ll be here to guide you through the world of PR. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
As Managing Director of the agency, I oversee all aspects of the agency keeping a close eye on financials and the client relations. Get in touch on LinkedIn.
Your first day
We’d normally say to start a little later on your first day, about 9.30am and then we can be ready to settle you in. You will have an Apple Mac laptop provided (which you’re welcome to take home for personal use too).
We will introduce you to the team, show you around your new digs and make sure you know exactly where the kettle is. We will help you to get set up and start getting to grips with our systems and processes. The team are here to help you get settled in so you if you have any questions just shout up!
The plan…
1. Introductions to the team
2. Intro to Lesniak Swann with Alex
3. Overview of our work practices and systems with Jo
4. Lunch with your immediate team
5. Getting you set up on all internal systems
The rest of the week
We’ll set some initial meetings for you in your first week so the team can go through their roles and tell you a bit about themselves and the clients we work with. You’ll soon get to know everyone’s name.
Your email will be set up in advance (we’ll send you login details and passwords) so we’ll start getting these set up and in your diary.
- Strategy and planning – Matt Hicks
- PR systems and processes – Maggie Morrissey
- Overview of accounts managed – Dan Needham
- Overview of accounts managed – Chelsea Haddon
- Overview of accounts managed – Jo Holdcroft
- Studio – Meet and greet with studio team – Mark Lesniak, Julian Watson, Tammy Barrett, Jamie Finn
After a month or so...
When you’ve settled in and been here a little while, we’ll get:
121s planned in diary.
Targets set.
Discuss development opportunities.
Annual review planned in.
Heads up on other matters
There are other activities throughout the month and year for you to be involved in, we have:
- Book club – each quarter we select a relevant industry book to read individually and then come together to share our thoughts and identify anything that can be adopted for our clients. The next book is “How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know by Byron Sharp” which we’re planning on discussing on Friday, 9 September. We’ll get you a copy sent out in the post.
- Showcase – each month we have showcase where everyone has the opportunity to ‘show off’ a piece of work, a thought or idea where we have challenged the client or the team in order to add value to what we are doing. The next one is scheduled for Friday, 27 May and we’ll pop it in your calendar.
- End of month lunch – we go out or have food delivered in on the last Friday of the month, a chance for us all to get away from our computers and have a good chinwag. Friday, 27 May will be the next one which the AM team are choosing the cuisine!
- Quarterly activities – every third month, instead of lunch we arrange an activity, it can range from painting mugs at Emma Bridgewater, escape rooms or our birthday ‘do’ in Manchester. Next one is planned for the end of June and the ‘upstairs’ team get to choose what to do.
Bits and bobs
The HR bits
Paula will call you ahead of your start date and go through the things she needs like bank/pay details to ensure you’re set up, and any other general HR bits. She’s also the keeper to ‘Timetastic’ which keeps track of everyone’s leave. Paula will get you set up before your start so if you have any holidays already planned, you can get these booked in.
Dress code
We’re fairly relaxed about dress code, we could be described as smart casual (at a push) but we do make a bit more of an effort when meeting clients. You’ll never see any of the blokes in a tie that’s for sure!
Flexible working
We have a flexible working policy, where we can choose when to start and end work but includes working certain ‘core hours’ – 9.30am to 4pm every day.
At least 50% minimum of contracted hours are to be done in the office, but in a junior role you will be expected to work full time in the office, for your initial period at least, as we feel juniors benefit from being in the office and will develop quicker just by hearing ‘things said in passing’ and face to face conversations with colleagues.
Everyone is in the office on Mondays and the last Friday of the month for our showcase meeting.
Getting the engines up and running…
We will need you to get set up with the following, don’t worry we will send details accounts and passwords before you start, all relevant links of what you need to download and set up are below. Oh and don’t forget to ask Tammy how to get started with Dropbox, you don’t want to end up like Maggie.
We’ll add you to our internal Slack channels so feel free to join in any conversations before you kick in. The ‘general’ chat tends to be work-related and ‘off-topic’ is just that, loads of random stuff gets talked about in there!
To set up…
Email
Calendar
To download…
Microsoft Office
Dropbox
Slack
Links…
And finally...
… a note about our behaviours. These guide us and sit at the heart of everything we do. If you follow these in all you do at LS, you won’t go far wrong!
To challenge
We approach the work by asking why, often challenging the status quo wherever we believe there is the opportunity of a better outcome for the client. We’re plain speaking and strategic in our work.
No marketing or business bullshit.
Be inquisitive
We’re passionate about finding new thinking, capabilities and ways to solve problems. This drive to find new thinking fuels our creativity.
This is the case across all parts of the business. Creativity is not just for our studio team.
Behave commercially
We are commercially minded – we expect to see a return on investment. We ensure this underpins our work wherever we can.
Dependability is critical to achieving this – we keep our promises and deadlines.
