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Roman Townsend - Financial Services

From mortgages – to pensions – to pork bellies. Roman Townsend, Account Director at financial services PR agency Penrose Financial, tells us how he brings home the bacon.

By Unicorn Jobs

I’m interested in how you got into PR Roman. What did you do when you graduated?

We’re talking about 2002. The dotcom bubble had burst and the jobs market was quite tough. No one was really recruiting – including PR agencies. I was caught in the classic Catch 22 situation: I needed relevant work experience for a job but couldn’t get it. But I persevered and managed do some internships – three months each at a tech agency and then a consumer agency, then almost six months as Press Officer to an MP.

So you knew that you wanted to get into PR?

Yes, I had decided that at university. I did history at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and while I was there I wrote for the student newspaper, Varsity. I was the music editor and love writing and doing presentations. I’ve always thought that you can’t separate what you say from how
you say it.

An important principle if you want a career in public relations

Exactly. As well as those internships, I also did an Institute of Public Relations diploma in the evenings. It was a good course and very useful – not least as a talking point on my CV. It showed I was serious about a career in PR. Even though I’d managed to get into those agencies, the course really speeded up the learning process. I was taught things that might otherwise have taken a long time to pick up by osmosis in the workplace.

And then you got a job at Penrose?

I had my interview at the end of 2003, and started in 2004 – I’ve been here for almost five years now. I started as an Account Executive and I’m now an Account Director working on a team of about a dozen people.

Tell me about Penrose

We’re a PR consultancy specialising in financial services and capital markets clients.

I always get confused between doing PR for financial companies and doing financial PR

Yes – so do lots of people! Penrose handles the corporate and product-related public relations of companies solely from the financial services and capital markets sectors. Financial PR, however, is completely different and involves handling financial communications for public companies (from any sector). Basically share price work: results, AGMs, IPOs, M&A bids, etc. Our clients are not necessarily public companies and, with one or two exceptions, we do not do work relating to the financial calendar communications of our listed clients.

So what kind of work is Penrose doing?

Our companies vary in size, some are quite small but equally some large ones and many are privately owned. Target audiences can vary from other businesses [B2B], to direct to consumers or the intermediaries that sell many investment products – but we also might be dealing with the regulator, politicians, unions, think tanks or more depending upon the individual client’s needs.

For example?

The obvious examples are mortgages, pensions, investment products – that sort of thing. So for example, we may help a client who is selling mortgage products to raise his profile among mortgage brokers – who sell mortgages to house buyers – and also among journalists who write about different mortgage deals. But we have clients across the whole range: actuaries, investment banks, investment managers, stockbrokers, financial technology suppliers, private equity firms, hedge funds, financial advisers, mortgage brokers and more.

I see. Give me another example of PR relating to financial companies

Well an interesting crisis situation I noticed in the media recently was a news story about a High Street bank issuing a Visa card for children, to enable them to buy things without cash. This would seem innocent enough, but the taboids found examples of children buying things they shouldn’t with the card (cigarettes, alcohol and more) and the provider was heavily criticised in a front page spread in the Daily Mail – we can only begin to imagine the reputation repercussions relating to that incident and how much work that would have created for their PR team.

‘Culture’ is very important in PR agencies isn’t it? How would you describe Penrose?

We are a relatively young agency, with lots of people in their late 20s and early 30s – I’m 29. It’s a very friendly place to work, relaxed – but dynamic at the same time! Currently there are around 55 staff.

How long has the agency been established?

This year is our tenth anniversary. We specialise in PR for financial services and capital markets companies only, so we’re all passionate about the same thing.

Some people might think that financial services PR is a rather dry and serious. Do you ever get work on any fun accounts?

Our client launched the first-ever exchange traded commodities platform in the world at the London Stock Exchange a while back. This would allow ordinary investors to trade in commodities in just the same way that they might invest in equities, through ‘exchange traded funds’. One of the 30-odd commodities you could invest in was ‘lean hogs’.

Lean hogs?

Yes. Have you heard of pork bellies? Well they’re dead pigs. Lean hogs are live pigs. So our team had to think of a way of publicising this new listing for our client.

And?

We had a photo call with a live pig at the London Stock Exchange.

You’re kidding!

No. We wanted to get Clara Furse, the chief executive, to pose with the pig, but astonishingly [he laughs] she was unavailable. She missed out there! This picture went global! There was a huge amount of interest – a scrum of photographers – and almost every financial paper on the globe picked up on the story.

Great. But what happened to the pig?

Well remember what I told you about the metamorphosis of lean hogs into pork bellies…?

Oh dear

But the client was delighted. And seriously, it’s a fact that sometimes financial products can be dull but that doesn’t mean we can’t find ways of making them more interesting and it certainly doesn’t mean that they are not of interest to the specialist trade media.

So how do you cope with that?

Well one thing is to encourage clients to communicate around themes rather than trying to concentrate on specific products that they might want us to promote. So for example, our pig allowed us to raise awareness of the new commodities exchange in general, and all the other products on it, such as oil and gold.

What other methods do you use?

Thought leadership, genuine research, that sort of thing. In other words, getting issues on to the agenda and then being able to talk about them and include the client in that debate. For example, not many people are interested in reading (or journalists in writing) stories about individual pension products. On the other hand, we all have to have an interest in retirement and how we will all manage. So if you can come up with an interesting pensions issue, you can create an interesting story which will appeal.

Give me another example of a financial PR task that you might tackle

If a leading fund manager is leaving, we might be asked to help communicate this to the fund’s clients – and the market. We would try to make sure there was a smooth handover to the new fund manager and ensure that key messages are communicated – why the new person is right for the role, for example. There is a pretty big turnover of leading fund managers – they’re very in demand and many investors follow them wherever they go! So you have to make sure that when they move on, there are no misunderstandings or fall-out.

What sort of clients does your team look after?

Our clients include Punter Southall, the actuarial firm; BDO Stoy Hayward Investment Management, which is investment and financial advice part of the accountancy practice; ETF Securities, the commodities specialists; SPA ETF, a provider of exchange traded funds; Sheffield Mutual, the friendly society; and many more. Penrose represents around 90 clients in total, including Standard and Poor’s – S&P – the world’s foremost provider of credit ratings and indices and PIMCO, the largest fixed income manager in the world.

Do you get involved in pitching for new business?

Yes – of course, that’s a big part of agency life. And it can be a lot of fun.

What advice would you give to people wanting to get into financial PR?

Persevere! Do any internships you can get, and learn as much as you can when you do. Having said that, be prepared for some dull chores while you’re getting your work experience. I’m afraid you just have to put up with it. Just remember that the PR ‘hill’ is pretty hard to climb at first, but it does get easier.

It sounds tough

Well I remember at 16 I had a summer job in a café earning £3.50 an hour… then six or seven years later – after my gap year, A-levels, and then Cambridge, there I was doing my internship at a PR agency and earning less – my bus fare and little more than that. But to be honest, I seem to remember being more useful on my first day in that café then I felt on my first day in PR. But if you stick in there and work hard, things will take off.

Any other tips?

Don’t underestimate the importance of keeping up with the media – reading newspapers especially. Books too. It’s not a bad idea to think about picking a sector to specialise in. It will give you focus. And get involved in industry level events. I am a committee member for the Corporate Financial Group of the CIPR [Chartered Institute for Public Relations] and I strongly recommend that people attend our regular lunchtime sessions and events with City editors and industry figures: a great networking opportunity and a chance to learn a lot about how our sector works.

What do you love about your job Roman?

The variety, meeting interesting clients and dealing with the media. I also love working with my colleagues.

What do you hate?

I can’t stand my commute, even though it’s relatively easy compared to many.

Find our more about Penrose at www.penrose.co.uk

This article first appeared in the Finance Talking Careers Centre