Kate Hartley - Agency Partner

Kate Hartley is a partner at Carrot Communications, a content, communications and PR agency.

She’s directed campaigns for clients as varied as Atos Origin, Anheuser-Busch theme parks, P&O and Overture, and now specialises in communications strategies for smaller, fast-growth companies.

She is particularly interested in the development of conversations and customer engagement over social media and digital channels, and blogs about the subject over at The Stick.

By Unicorn Jobs

How did you first get into PR?

By accident. My first PR job was in 1992 as a temp at Edelman, stuffing envelopes for a consumer awareness campaign on recycling (with no sense of irony). I left after four weeks to go and teach English as a foreign language, and then rejoined the company a year later as a PR assistant.

How has your career progressed?

I started at the bottom, which was a great way to learn the basics of PR. It was a very different world then: PR degrees were almost unheard of, and there were very few graduate schemes at communication agencies. But I got great on-the-job training at Edelman, experiencing account handling, event management, very thorough budgeting, media and writing skills.

I then joined Shandwick’s travel division where I stayed in various roles, working my way up to Associate Director of the consumer team. I joined Carrot Communications in 2000 and am now a partner and co-owner there.

How did you get your current job?

I met Richard Houghton when he was running one of the Shandwick UK companies. We stayed in touch and when he set up Carrot in 2000, I joined him.

Tell us a bit about Carrot Communications.

Carrot is a content, communications and PR agency. We work mostly for fast-growth companies, with a leaning towards tech.

We take a slightly different approach from other agencies in that we view communications in its broadest sense: we develop communications strategies for clients that include both direct and indirect engagement with their customers and prospects.

That can mean we help develop sales, channel and marketing support programmes; presentations; newsletters; web content and so on; as well as doing media relations (offline and online).

What does your current job involve?

I’m a partner at Carrot, which means I have a role in every bit of the business – clients, finances, HR, marketing and new business. The most important focus (of course) is the work we do for clients.

Broadly, my client-facing role involves: advising clients on their communications strategies; coming up with new ideas for campaigns – both media and direct customer communications; taking responsibility for the delivery of those campaigns; and evaluating their success.

I also get involved with a PRCA group that shares best practice on digital communications channels.

Give us an idea of a typical day at work?

I’m not sure there’s any such thing! We have incredibly diverse clients, so my days are pretty varied. I talk to my clients every day, and develop much of the content for their campaigns. I also make sure I’m up to date with new developments in the industry – I find Twitter and LinkedIn really useful for that.

Carrot has a bit of an unusual staffing structure. How does that work?

We completely changed our model a year ago.

Because our clients tend to be smaller companies – usually either investor or board-backed – with aggressive growth plans, they need a slightly different approach from that of the traditional PR agency model. They want senior level advice on communications, market positioning and messaging across the business; and they’re not interested in things like tactical reporting and the traditional agency overhead structure.

So we’ve built a structure that can deliver that. We have a small hub office in central London, and we use a team of specialists that we pull in against specific client requirements. It’s a very lean model and means we’ve been able to grow the business through a difficult few years for our industry.

Do you think there is a lack of ethnic diversity in PR, and how should the industry tackle it?

I think this is a real problem in the PR industry and one we need to address. We need to reflect better the changing demographic in the UK, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because we need to advise clients on their communications with a wide audience. I think the first thing we need to do as an industry is raise awareness among young people from ethnic minority communities, and address why many agencies aren’t attracting employees from diverse social and ethnic groups.

Do you think social media is having an impact on PR as a profession?

Yes, undoubtedly. PR has changed enormously since I started (I’ll show my age now – businesses didn’t use the internet in the very early days of my career). The biggest change, I think, is that companies can engage with audiences much more effectively. PR is a two-way conversation now.

The concept of ‘controlling’ a message has pretty much gone, and we’re focusing much more on developing reputations. It means that spin is a dead concept – you can’t gloss over a bad product any more, which I think is a great thing. But we still develop audience strategies first and foremost – the channels to engage with those audiences have just got more complex.

What advice would you have for anyone considering a career in PR?

Understand the principles of business, and get under the skin of the client industries you want to be involved with. Oh, and learn the basics of grammar. We need good copywriters.

What’s been the highlight of your career so far?

Being involved with Carrot and working with Richard Houghton. It’s been incredibly exciting to be able to change the way we do business, and to have a greater impact on our clients’ success. It’s rare to be able to do that in your job, and something I could never had done if I didn’t co-own the business with someone who has great drive.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that we couldn’t find on the internet.

I’ve started taking piano lessons again having not played for 20 years (it hasn’t helped my relationship with my neighbours!).