Becky Williams Email and Phone Number

Senior Communications Manager, managing strategic communications with all staff and families of supported individuals for this national charity for people with learning disabilities. As part of my role I am responsible for:Developing the comms strategy for staff and families; as well as working as part of the senior management team, overseeing the overall marketing and communications strategy.I have also spent long periods (including two 6 month trenches), covering the Brand and Marketing function, alongside my own position, during the long term sickness and unfilled maternity leave of the Senior Manager.Overseeing the delivery and development of all communication channels, including a staff intranet 'The Hub', family webpages, regular newsletters and a manager's briefing.Delivery of large-scale events including the annual staff awards ceremony, celebration events with our Royal Patron and the Family Information Days.Line management of the Internal Comms team.Development of communications collateral from posters and flyers to booklets, PowerPoint presentations and videos.Strategic guidance, the development of comms plans and authoring of important and sensitive messages, crisis and change comms; including those relating to organisational restructures, mergers, staff pay and messages from the Chief Executive.Working closely with the PR Manager on messaging around crisis comms.Development and management of the 'It Doesn't Add Up' campaign which galvanised families and staff to write to their MPs, sign a petition and share resources to raise awareness of a financial crisis in the social care sector.Management of staff and family surveys, along with implementation of evaluation, measurement and feedback mechanisms.Managing the staff and families budget, from submission through to reforecasting.

I was responsible for developing a new strategy, and new channels of communication with families of people with learning disabilities; a unique and vital audience for this charity. During this time, engagement levels grew exponentially with families, 2000 of whom signed up to one or more regular channels of communication.Key achievements included:Developing a new model of communications with this unique audience.Developing a number of new communications channels, including a family welcome pack, regular newsletters, an e-mailing list, dedicated web pages and a forum of families willing to be surveyed.Development of a new contact database designed to initiate new and better customer retention management.Development of a new 'Commitment to Partnership with relatives of the people we support'; including consultation and piloting with staff and families, development of training and production of of supporting materials.Development of dedicated family web pages.Coordination of all communications with families, from large scale mailings to newsletter content.Evaluation and consultation with families through satisfaction surveys.Rallying participation from families in consultations and campaigns.Planning and delivery of national family events, including developing presentations, videos, exhibitions and workshops.

I was the Brand Manager for Hft, a charity specialising in providing support for people with learning disabilities. My role was to promote the brand and manage marketing activity nationally, providing support to staff in regional services across England. (I also temporarily covered this role, alongside my own role, for 6 months during a period of staff illness, in 2015, before recruiting and training a replacement).Key achievements:Delivering 9 royal events, attended by HRH The Princess Royal, including one attended by two members of the royal family. Often attended by high profile guests and involved skills ranging from project management, stakeholder management and speech writing.Managing and delivering interim branding, during the time of a major merger between two national organisations.Writing and delivering the Annual Review, showcasing the best of the charity's achievements.Key duties:Ensuring that the Hft brand was used optimally to raise the profile of the charity; and that all of Hft’s communications, fundraising and marketing reflected Hft’s branding and core values.Leading on the development of offline marketing communications, including marketing literature and promotional items.Delivering Marketing and PR workshops to train staff in use of the brand.Delivery of events and conferences, including speaking opportunities and sponsorships.Acting as palace liaison officer for the royal patron, bidding for and planning royal events. Managing the External Comms budget, including quarterly reforecasting and monthly reporting.Developing and delivering the Marketing Strategy, as well as evaluation against set KPIs. Commissioning market research, including an Impact Research Assessment.Managing photo/video shoots and the consent process.Line management of PR and Marketing Assistant/Comms Administrator.Management of external partnerships with suppliers e.g. designers, conference organisers, photographers and research consultants.

I helped to set up and establish this science communication consultancy. Duties included:Lead responsibility for the development of projects and resources across the company’s portfolio of communications and education projects, designed to engage public and school audiences with science. These ranged from exhibitions, to digital and paper-based educational resources, through to UK-wide public dialogue events. Publicity, marketing and external communications; designing marketing materials such as flyers, posters, case studies, brochures and newsletters.Design, development and maintenance of the company websites, including regular updates, monitoring analytics and search engine optimisation.Writing bids for funding, (including strategic planning of all aspects of a project, from setting objectives and allocating budgets, to detailing plans for partnership management, marketing and dissemination). Clients included: research councils such as EPSRC; STFC; government departments such as Defra and BIS; the Institute of Physics; The Royal Academy of Engineering; The British Council; ARKive; Science Learning Centres; STEMNET; The National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement; The OU; the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; The Wellcome Trust and more.Provision of evaluations, research and stakeholder consultations for external clients, using a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Provision of other consultancy services such as authoring and editing content for external clients, such as the development of a series of guides and case studies for an online toolkit for public engagement, as well as the development of an online training course.Delivery of training. e.g. I provided training in evaluation to PhD students at the University of Bath; I also delivered a workshop to train a network of delivery partners to facilitate a UK wide drama-debate about cognitive enhancement. Initiating a number of procedures, policies, strategies and systems.

I had multiple roles in this organisation: I was the web editor for the Faculty of Applied Sciences, the Publicity Officer for the Science Communication Unit and was responsible for the promotion and marketing of research in the Faculty of Applied Sciences. I was also the editor of a quarterly magazine called 'Research Matters'. Duties included:Leading three web development projects, which involved consultation with various research groups, senior staff and extensive user testing.Managing and editing the Faculty website and its internal intranet; as well as managing content for the Science Communication Unit website.Managing publicity for the Science Communication Unit and various research centres, through the authoring of press releases, fielding media enquiries and creating photo opportunities.Designing, authoring and editing: ‘Research Matters’ a glossy magazine which featured news, profiles of research and researchers; and which was sent to all internal staff, as well as a number of external clients. Raising the profile of the research portfolio of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, through the creation of marketing materials, such as flyers, brochures, posters, web content and articles placed in external publications.Collating, writing and distributing a weekly e-newsletter to all staff in the Faculty and other selected departments.Regularly writing features and news for the monthly university-wide newsletter: ‘The Bulletin’. Also, providing content for other newsletters such as the Alumni news and selected external publications.Managing the Faculty’s Research Assessment Exercise submission and the creation of a CV database.

Key roles and responsibilities:Writing feature articles for the magazine; many of which were published: including 2, 3 and 4 page spreads. Researching and writing small news articles.Monitoring press releases, news agency feeds, and identifying stories.Researching and interviewing, as well as transcribing interviews.Updating and writing the listings sections in Venue and its other publication ‘Folio’.Consulting on the development of the website, (which was at that time in its infancy).

Roles and responsibilities:Monitoring news feeds and press releases, generating feature ideas.Writing and editing copy for the newsreaderEditing digital sound packages.Creating mini radio news features.Interviewing passers-by to capture ‘vox pops’ relating to topical news stories.

Roles and responsibilities:Administering and winding up group pension schemes.Liaising with brokers.Customer Service and taking queries from clients.I was also responsible for devising a strategy for the future of the team and presenting it to the board of directors.