Regional PR Manager

at  Gateley

THE TEAM

With 60 people within our Marketing and Front of House teams, we support on all aspects of marketing and business development across Gateley including internal and external communications, bids and sales, client development, events, digital and marketing projects. Winners of the 2020 Excellence in Sales and Marketing Award at the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Awards and shortlisted in the 2022 Best Marketing Campaign Award at the Managing Partners Forum Awards, the Marketing team at Gateley has more than doubled in size in five years, reflecting the investment that the business has made in attracting and retaining exceptional marketing talent.
This role sits within the Corporate Communications team. Headed by the Communications Director the team comprises 12 corporate communications specialists covering investor communications, public and media relations, internal communications, social media, design and responsible business activity.
We continue to develop and evolve our proposition and are looking for individuals with a ‘can do’ mentality to join the team.

DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AND WELL BEING

Diversity, inclusion and well-being is an important part of Gateley’s culture and values. We recruit talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, providing equal opportunities for all to join our team regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation, disability, or culture.
We create an exciting and rewarding place to work that aims to fulfil everyone’s potential and together to achieve personal and business goals. We offer flexible working patterns to help our staff achieve a good work/ life balance and we encourage candidates seeking flexibility in their next role to apply for any of our vacancies.
We are proud to have been recognised by The Law Society as gold standard for our Diversity and Inclusion Charter and to be Stonewall Diversity Champions.

THE ROLE

Reporting to the Senior External Communications Manager and drawing on the expertise of the Group’s wider Corporate Communications team, the Regional PR Manager will develop and manage the PR, media relations and press office activity across all of Gateley’s regional offices.
The Regional PR Manager will work strategically and tactically to plan, deliver and manage proactive and reactive, value-added communications support working closely with the wider Marketing team and ensuring key regional communications objectives are delivered.
The Regional PR Manager will work with local office heads and fee earners across Gateley’s network of offices to agree communications activity that aligns with the relevant office and business plans and subsequently ensure the successful execution of all PR and communications within those plans as well as the measurement of results.
The role holder will produce high quality and engaging communications content across multiple regional business media channels for a variety of audiences including internal stakeholders. They will build and maintain excellent contacts across the relevant regional business media, and with the relevant external and internal stakeholders, including third party suppliers.
The Regional PR Manager will be tasked with co-ordinating activities to develop the profile of the regional offices; raise awareness through key titles and media platforms through positioning our spokespeople to comment on key issues in the local markets relating to the work we do and safeguard the reputation of the Gateley brand at all times.

Responsibilities will include:

• Developing and managing the media relations strategy and plan and leading the press office work across the regional office network in addition to researching and recommending commercial opportunities with local media partners that align with our objectives.
• Managing reactive media requests and working with the Communications Director on any reputational issues relating to the offices.
• Proactively seeking out news agenda driven opportunities, responding to planned media forward features and commentary opportunities and tapping into Response Source opportunities linked to the target print and online media on a regional PR, media relations and press office work will specifically include:
• Developing and managing written content and commentary by creating press releases, articles and thought leadership pieces.
• Creating engaging social media content to sit alongside the media relations work being undertaken and build up relevant regional key journalist and external stakeholder relationships via our existing social media channels.
• Edit fee earner articles where necessary and ensure the approval process within the Corporate Communications team is adhered to at all times.
• Develop a close network of journalist contacts within our target media for the regional offices and maintain relationships with relevant editors and reporters both virtually and face to face - Conduct fee earner/journalist press briefings on a regular basis.
• Awards - research, plan and manage media awards activity for the regional offices across all key titles. Work with the relevant Platform PR Managers led by the Senior External Communications Manager to draft submissions and get these placed to deadline.
• Work with the Corporate Communications team to develop a range of regional press photography and video content that is needed to support regional and national PR and media relations work as well as investor and internal communications activity.
• Use robust measurement and evaluation techniques to demonstrate ROI for the PR and media relations activity being generated for the regional offices and keep our Coverage Book software updated with the regional coverage.
• Work closely with the Communications Director and Responsible Business Manager to ensure proactive regional PR and media activity aligns with the Group’s Responsible Business strategy.
• Adopt a proactive and consultative approach and manage the PR and media activity for the regional office heads, as well as other external and internal stakeholders, in the same way clients would be managed within a PR consultancy environment.

This job description is not an exhaustive list due to the requirements of the role. Therefore, the job holder may be required from time to time to carry out other ad hoc tasks as requested.

This is a collaborative role which requires the following:

• The ability to build strong, proactive relationships with fee earners across the entire Group and positive working relationships with the wider Marketing team. The PR Manager - Regions will have an excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation and the English language and will possess superb attention to detail skills.
• Excellent time management skills are required, working to deadlines and an ability to be proactive and take the initiative are all essential skills for this role