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My background spans journalism, media relations, marketing and internal communications across the consumer, business-to-business and not-for-profit sectors. I am a CIPR-qualified communications strategist with team leadership experience, utilising a creative and analytical mindset for communications planning, implementation and measurement.
Each role has enabled the other, helping to build my knowledge and experience to improve communication adaptability and expand on project management methods, principles and processes. My strong work ethic drives me to set and achieve goals, and I prioritise positive and effective working relationships with and between stakeholders by ensuring key individuals are kept informed and involved every step of the way. I have planned and delivered one-to-one mentoring and group training, in person and online, to international teams and embrace new technologies, particularly when initiatives improve productivity.
I take pride in planning and implementing impactful multimedia and multiplatform content adapted for key audiences and channels, ensuring messaging is ethical, represents values and aligns with strategic goals. I am driven to continually improve efforts and achieve project and team success by combining in-depth research, effective collaboration, dynamic communication approaches and ongoing measurement.
Continual professional and personal development is important to me, and, where possible, I expand on this through volunteering, independent study and experimentation with new ideas, methods and technologies.
Overall, I strive to make a positive impact and thrive in a dynamic, collaborative and creative environment, delivering with energy, determination and focus.
I spend my free time outdoors and have hiked across the Yorkshire Dales, toured Waterfall Country and embarked on mini adventures with some memorable moments, seeing the Atlantic Puffins on Skomer Island and the Grey Seals at Horsey Gap.
Areas of personal importance include education, healthcare and conservation.
My career journey:
Five years of live-on-the-hour early morning news bulletins as a BJTC-accredited freelance broadcast journalist working across Herts, Beds, Bucks, Essex and The Midlands following completion of my BA (Hons) journalism degree. Mass takeovers happened, newsrooms merged or disappeared entirely, and freelancing became unsustainable.
I then went on to work in the PR and communications software sector, beginning as a researcher at Cision, where I focused on media profiling and then later moved to PR Newswire, where I continued as a media researcher and had a taster of internal communications, company presentations and interviewing for the research department. I then joined Agility PR Solutions and was promoted to Senior Media Editor, where I focused on media relations and industry analysis, making insight-led decisions for project initiatives. This resulted in news distribution success for a range of clients in the US and continued improvements to the media monitoring experience via the SaaS platform. I also produced a series of regular content for the marketing team, mentored and trained a team of over 30 analysts, and produced the weekly 'Media Moves' newsletter. I grew my subscriber base to over 90,000 stakeholders across the US. The implementation of expensive AI solutions in an already challenged economy caused large-scale changes in the software sector that negatively impacted headcounts.
Initially, as a hobby, I started an adventure as a photographer after completing a portrait photography course at the Oxford School of Photography. Through word of mouth, I grew a small client base working on image marketing projects with independent businesses such as artists, performers, therapists, dental practices and private healthcare centres. The growing trend of mobile phone content and the reliance on them for ease of use has resulted in professional photographers taking a back seat and surviving on sales of stock imagery. However, photography is an art form I continue to pursue over 8 years later, and I find capturing wildlife an ongoing, yet fun, challenge.
Photography
I then embarked on a study break to complete a CIPR Specialist Diploma (Level 7) in Internal Communications and combined this with volunteering for a national NGO as part of the internal communications team. I focused on the brand programme during a time of transformational change for the charity, where I worked with the senior leadership team, project leads, and stakeholders at all levels to communicate a programme of changes. I then helped conduct the end-of-year audits that improved the internal communications strategy going forward. Additionally, I spent two weeks on a residential placement at one of their most popular nature reserves, where I experienced life out in the field, and I have been a judge on the annual calendar photography competition two years in a row.
In between, I worked with a regional charity as their Digital Marketing Lead, where I liaised with senior management and key teams across the organisation to formulate and implement a new marketing strategy that increased social media engagement by 100% in the first quarter. I also revised the communications plan template to improve collaborative efforts and highlight strategic objectives with key team members.
I am only at the start of my career transition as a communications strategist and am looking forward to what the future has in store. There is so much more to learn, do and experience, and that is what motivates me. I am most intrigued by the psychological and social impact of change communications strategies to successfully align colleagues with corporate objectives. I plan to complete the Prosci certification at some point, too!
SKILLS
Strategic Communications, Digital Marketing, Content Development, Audience Analysis, Internal Communication, Reporting, Mentoring, Training, Journalism, Interviewing, Audio Recording, Filming, Photography, Editing, Proofreading, PR Targeting, GDPR, Website Development, WordPress, Wix, Digital Production, MSWord, Excel, Powerpoint, Canva, Photoshop, Lightroom.
Email: contact@victoriabowers.co.uk
Location: Cambridgeshire
Connect: LinkedIn
Follow: Instagram
If you have around half an hour to spare, you will find out how I approach internal communications. I have adapted this to be a guide for others starting out in the field. Think of it as a sharing of knowledge from my experience in the communications sphere and some learnings from accompanying studies. I hope you enjoy it and get an idea of how adopting the creative and analytical mindset drives you forward through every stage of the internal communications process.
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