Here’s some I prepared earlier
A few of my favourite projects. To see more, check out my portfolio.
Established in 1904 and with almost 40,000 students, Leeds is one of the largest universities in the UK. It’s part of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities and is renowned globally for the quality of its research and teaching. Leeds has won the prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize three times.
I have worked with the University to write and edit its 2022 and 2023 Annual Reports, was part of the the team working on the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework submission and have written blogs, case studies and articles for the University of Leeds website.
Mary was instrumental in helping the University take our first steps into Integrated Reporting for our Annual Report. She has a knack of assimilating complex content from diverse sources, cutting through to its core and providing accessible copy without ‘dumbing down’. Her calm, easy manner and flexibility make her great to work with.
I’ve worked with Reckitt on their Gender Pay reporting for several years, initially via their agency but, more recently, directly with the stakeholder engagement team. My involvement has included researching contextual content, interpreting data for more effective communications, interviewing key senior management, copywriting, copyediting and proofreading. One of my favourite jobs of the year.
2023 gender pay and inclusion reporting (with report download)
We’ve worked with Mary for years and she has always been a pleasure to work with. She is a brilliant writer who understands our briefs quickly, has a clear grasp on the right tone and focus for the job and often delivers ahead of deadlines!
The Phone Co-op is the UK’s only telecoms co-operative, owned by its members and run for the benefit of its customers. Now part of Your Co-op‘s Utility Solutions group, The Phone Co-op provides broadband and mobile services to homes and businesses around the UK and counts socially responsible brands like Lush Cosmetics and HCT Group among its clients.
I helped The Phone Co-op develop online content and customer communications that promote its products and services whilst championing its values of ethical operation, social responsibility, caring for the community and looking after the environment.
Mary has worked with The Phone Co-op for a number of years. She delivers excellent creative content and is a flexible, knowledgeable, external support to our marketing, digital and customer experience team.
A great collaborator, Mary brings valuable additional resource to our larger marketing projects. She develops an in-depth understanding of our organisation and our purpose, social responsibility, and researches what matters to our members and customers, so we can communicate in an easy to understand, simple way.
Launching a brand new music institute in the heart of the Black Country became an even more challenging prospect in a global pandemic.
Resonance is an exciting new venture backed by some of the most influential names in the music industry. It opened in September 2020, delivering music performance, production and business degrees to talented students.
I came on board a year earlier to write the website and stayed until the opening, working with the management team to promote the institute to potential students and their teachers, alongside outsourced design and PR agencies.
When Covid made it impossible to run the college roadshows and open days that provided fertile recruiting opportunities, the marketing had to work even harder. We used a flexible combination of online content, emails, advertising, PR and social media to successfully attract the first student cohort.
Mary was an important member of the Resonance team for over a year, working on marketing communications for the launch of our brand-new, state-of-the-art music institute. She helped develop key messages, writing scripts for our website and prospectus and producing regular e-shots; along with providing a strategic overview of PR, advertising and social media.
Despite the challenges of 2020, the Resonance brand was well-established by the time our first students arrived and we look forward to an exciting and positive future.
Evidence-based investing (also known as passive investing) was little-understood in the UK when I started working with Barnett Ravenscroft Wealth Management in 2007.
For over a decade, I helped the business educate its clients and the wider marketplace about goals-based portfolio management and evidence-based investing, which relies on balanced asset allocation and diversification to capture the returns of the stock market.
BRWM’s High Net Worth clients trust the company to focus on their agreed investment goals. This trust has been reinforced by the written and visual resources I created with the help of designers and production companies which I project-managed.
Mary has the ability to listen to a complex subject being explained in unfamiliar technical jargon, go away and read up on the subject, and then return to listen to further explanations in more technical jargon, before finally producing copy that anyone can understand. Not only are the results brilliant but Mary is also great to work with.
The Royal Life Saving Society celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2016. With active member branches in 30 commonwealth countries, making sure everyone was included in the celebrations took a global effort.
A 125th anniversary team was formed and I was asked to join as communications lead. Monthly teleconferences, involving participants in different time zones from Canada to New Zealand, set the agenda and guided the promotional activity – a 125th anniversary microsite, regular member e-newsletter and PR. I created a media toolkit including press releases, key messages and tips to enable branches around the Commonwealth to engage with their own country’s media.
A London launch conference and reception, attended by the society’s president, HRH Prince Michael of Kent, kicked off a year of initiatives and activities around Commonwealth member branches. The anniversary year concluded with a royal reception at Buckingham Palace in the presence of the society’s patron, HM The Queen, which generated press coverage around the world.
Mary devised a strategy which would effectively keep branches in touch and also ensure they could spread the message to their stakeholders in their own countries with minimum effort and maximum consistency. She became a valued member of the 125th anniversary team and regularly came up with great ideas and initiatives to promote the society.
Mary fulfilled all that we had hoped the comms lead would do and more, and saved a very busy Commonwealth office a lot of time and effort.
The National Register of Tradeswomen is the brainchild of Hattie Hasan MBE, founder of women-only plumbers, Stopcocks.
The register is a direct response to enquiries from would-be tradeswomen as well as potential customers and vulnerable householders who feel safer with women. It aims to link up tradeswomen around the country and provide a trustworthy and reliable source of information for anyone looking to employ a tradeswoman in their home.
I helped develop key messages and a media strategy to launch the register, created a press release and media target list, and issued a story about the launch in time for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Mary took time to understand the business and prepared a useful and practical strategic publicity plan we found invaluable in organising our thoughts and key messages for the launch of the National Register of Tradeswomen. As well as the plan, she created and issued an initial press release which resulted in interest from national media titles.
To see more of my work, check out my portfolio.
Drop me a line or book a discovery call.
