Charlotte Birks sits down with PR Week for a Creative Q&A

How did you get where you are now?

I landed a place on the Diffusion grad scheme when the agency was three years old. I loved my time there and learned a tonne. Diffusion worked on a transparent ‘payment by results’ model that made us all incredibly commercial, forensic about media strategy and laser-focused on results. Plus, the people were the best.

Hungry for larger agency experience, I moved to Good Relations in 2014, which is part of the VCCP Partnership. I honed my craft running big press offices – including Subway, B&Q and Royal Caribbean – and have always thrived off the buzz of new business. Playing a leading role in landing Celebrity Cruises, SodaStream and Halfords were career highlights.

So that’s experience, and hopefully, a bit of talent, covered. The other big thing we don’t talk about often enough is a privilege. I am CIS, white and straight, so haven’t faced some of the barriers that others do when it comes to getting ahead. I mention this because we all have a responsibility to make our industry and our work more inclusive – especially those who have benefited most from our privilege. One of the most rewarding parts of my role right now is working as the GR rep on VCCP’s partnership-wide ‘D&I Collective’. We’re investing in training and development, working with amazing partners, encouraging industry-access initiatives, looking at the way we create, how we recruit and importantly getting transparent about measuring diversity.