Judges 24

Daniella Lebor is an award-winning communicator with experience advising politicians, corporations, NGOs and non-profit organizations on their communication and policy priorities.

As co-managing director of APCO UK, she is responsible for managing and growing APCO’s UK business, and developing an inclusive culture which helps to empower all staff to succeed.

John Shield joined the BBC as Director of Communications in November 2013. He is responsible for all of the BBC’s communications activity.

Prior to this John was Director of Communications at the Department for Work and Pensions – John headed up all the communications activity for the department, including press, marketing, and internal communications.

John has both private and public sector experience, having been a Director at one of Britain’s largest transport businesses and the Head of Communications for news, current affairs and sport at the BBC. He was also Director of Communications at the Department for Communications and Local Government, and Head of News at the Department for Education and Skills. He has also worked at the Foreign Office and No. 10.

With almost 20 years’ of experience working in communications, I love nothing more than devising and shaping stories, and getting them out to the right people. Having worked predominantly with technology brands – with a small stint in French nuclear power – it’s great to be at the forefront of innovation and constant change, where I am always learning.

I have helped build brands such as Darktrace, Cognizant and Ocado Technology, taken companies through exits, and developed and executed marcomms strategies to launch organisations into new regions, geographies or sectors.

Within my remit as Head of Global, I look after our network of agency partners around the world, thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to get back to my international roots (having grown up in France, Germany and Malaysia) and manage the annual fly-in Summit with our 20+ partners. Building teams, fostering strong connections and ensuring people – colleagues, clients, and partners alike – enjoy working together is hugely important to me.

Group Managing Director for Corporate Affairs at Burson, Leila is a corporate reputation specialist, with nearly 25 years’ experience. She has forged a career running multi-market thought leadership campaigns that generate tier one media coverage and compelling digital content for the world’s biggest brands. She also has extensive crisis and issues management experience.

Kate is Managing Director of the award winning consumer brands team at Cirkle where she looks after the agency’s team of publicists, creatives, social and influencer experts working on some brilliant clients including Dulux, Tango, Birds Eye and Mars Petcare.

With over 20 years working in the comms industry, Kate has worked at top agencies of all shapes and sizes and has developed and led integrated comms strategies and award winning creative campaigns for some of the UK’s best known brands including John Lewis Partnership, Morrisons, Aldi, Pets At Home, Caffe Nero, Vue Entertainment, McDonald’s, Persil and Warburtons.

With more 25+ years of experience in the B2B technology PR and marketing space, Rich has worked with some of the world’s largest tech companies and most interesting challenger brands. He’s a Fellow of the PRCA and loves judging PR and marketing awards.

Cat has over 20 years of experience in PR and communications, both agency and in-house.  She is currently Head of Group PR at the Co-op, leading the PR across all its businesses. She has worked across both the corporate and consumer PR spheres winning multiple awards for best-in-class campaigns.

Ashley is a Director in Grayling’s Brand team, and is passionate about behaviour change, best-in-class media relations and earned-first, creative campaigns for his clients. Ashley has worked for some of the biggest household names including Visa, Lloyds Bank, Currys, easyJet, Hilton Hotels, Cathedral City and Country Life, and several of his campaigns have won PR industry awards.

Nyree Ambarchian is co-founder of Jack & Grace, a purpose-driven communications agency. On a mission to use comms as a force for good, Jack & Grace is a B Corp and only works with organisations that value people, planet, and profit equally.

Nyree’s spent 20 years delivering award-winning behaviour change campaigns for government, not-for-profits, and brands that create positive change.

Niki Hutchinson is the founder and MD of London-based, LarkHill PR – a B2B agency with clients including Brave Bison, SocialChain, Wavemaker, LilaConnect and Kooth.

She has over 20 years of experience working in the PR agency world working across high-profile brands within the creative industry, digital health, technology and telecoms.
Niki has planned, led and implemented Global, EMEA and UK-based strategic campaigns and PR programmes for the likes of BT, BlackBerry, Colt, F-Secure, HP, NVIDIA, Pret a Manger, Orange, salesforce.com, Tableau Software, and VXFiber, to name a few!

In her spare time, Niki can be found attending several eclectic gigs, with her head in a book, or watching the occasional international Rugby Union game.

Georgia has spent the last decade delivering award-winning campaigns and hard-working press offices across a range of sectors including tech, travel, FMCG and corporate communications, both in agency and in-house roles. Georgia is also a mentor with Early Careers Foundation and Taylor Bennett Foundation, as part of her ongoing commitment to supporting young individuals looking to explore a career in communications

Mo is Senior Communications Manager at Pernod Ricard, a leading global supplier of premium wine and spirits. Mo began her PR career agency-side at various consumer lifestyle agencies including Jackie Cooper PR, Fever and Mischief working across a mix of FMCG clients, before moving in-house. At Pernod Ricard, she leads on all internal communications and crisis comms for the Global Travel Retail division.

As Corporate Reputation Director for Specsavers, Jo is responsible for brand reputation across the business and also leads the 25-strong award-winning in-house PR team, delivering a public relations service for all of Specsavers’ optical, audiology and domiciliary businesses in the UK and Ireland covering consumer, corporate and industry engagement. A regular industry awards judge, Jo was one of the first women in the world to be awarded Chartered PR Practitioner status by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in 2009 and has twice been shortlisted for best in-house PR professional of the year by the PRCA. Jo graduated from Kent University with an honours degree in English and American Literature and spent eight years as a journalist and editor before joining Specsavers, where she has been for 28 years. Born in Guernsey, where Specsavers is based, Jo is married to Jim, a musician who works in broadcasting and media relations.

Samiah Anderson is the Head of Digital Economy at techUK, overseeing techUK’s digital economy programme, tasked with ensuring the UK the best place to start, scale and run a technology business.

With over six years of public affairs expertise, Samiah has built a solid reputation as a tech policy specialist, engaging regularly with UK Government Ministers, senior civil servants and UK Parliamentarians. She has extensive experience in policy development, public affairs and integrated communications and has built and led, several international tech coalitions operating across London, Brussels, Washington.

Samiah is a passionate and driven professional. Facilitating stakeholder engagement programmes focusing on economic growth, policy, digital regulation, digital markets competition, AI. Anderson also leverages skills in business development, and issue management to deliver high-quality results and outcomes. In addition, she is an active member of the Black Comms Network and is involved in a host of other DE&I initiatives within the industry including Black Politicos and the Taylor Bennett Foundation.