Kat Harrison-Dibbits Email & Phone Number

I currently lead a multi-disciplinary team of nine covering PR, media, social media, digital content, and internal communications at the only UK charity providing specialist care for teenagers and young adults with cancer. I am responsible for all media and communications strategy, to ensure that our activity supports organisational objectives and safeguards the vulnerable young people we work with. Projects include:* Launch of the campaign Talk About Dying, to open up a national conversation about death and how receiving a terminal diagnosis affects young people with cancer and those they love. We produced an award-winning short film, and generated media coverage in regional, national and specialist media. * I personally influenced our Executive team and Board of Trustees to include reputation on our Principal Risk Register for the first time, and worked with them to help change their understanding of reputation from something to be managed only reactively, via crisis communications plans, to seeing it as something that can be proactively built and managed.* Building our reactive capacity to allow us to respond to the Budget and health announcements such as the Major Conditions Strategy and Lord O’Shaughnessy’s report into clinical trials availability. * Launching the first Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Awareness Month, resulting in national and regional media coverage.

OKRE is a global hub connecting expertise in the entertainment industries, research sector and personal lived experience. We support collaboration to create high-impact content and innovative research that expands everyone's understanding of the world.As Head of Communications at this new organisation I oversaw all aspects of our strategic communications, building the marketing and communications department from scratch and implementing new media, social media and email strategies. Projects included:* Creation and implementation of OKRE's first marketing and communications strategy* Marketing and communications support for the OKRE Summit, including PR launch, media partnerships, audience segmentation, ticket sales and marketing strategy and digital content strategy. * Website upgrade to replace OKRE's original website with a more flexible and fit-for-purpose system that will allow us to scale our content strategy as the organisation grows.

Manchester, United Kingdom

This role oversaw all the communications activity at HOME, Manchester's largest multi-arts venue and a National Portfolio Organisation, including press, PR, social media, website and content creation. By communicating with a huge range of stakeholders, my team raised HOME’s reputation on the local, national and international stage. It was my responsibility to create and implement PR, communications and digital strategy that supported our charitable objectives of promoting and improving education in the arts and developing new audiences who might feel excluded from the arts, as well as fulfilling our commercial aims - to get bums on seats. This meant being as familiar with Google Ad Grants as I am with getting up at 4am to oversee live BBC Breakfast outside broadcasts and as happy interpreting data as I am writing blog posts.As a specialist in reputation management it was my job to advise our executive team on how best to position HOME within the busy marketplace of Manchester’s cultural sector while also strengthening the networks that allow us to collaborate with our fellow arts organisations for the city’s good. Throughout lockdown, I positioned HOME as a thought leader in our sector with pieces in national and industry press, appearances and a communications strategy that prioritises clear audience communication, generosity to our peers in making platforms available for them and data-driven insights. I also worked alongside our web agency to create a new digital platform that will continue to expand HOME's international reach and provide an opportunity to enjoy the arts for those who might not yet feel confident to return to a live setting. I ran online events, more closely integrated our marketing and PR functions and I reworked our internal communications tactics to switch from corporate to personal, allowing colleagues working from home and in isolation the opportunity to connect. Yes, that does mean more dogs.

Manchester, United Kingdom

In this role I managed the the PR and communications strategy for the Science and Industry Museum, in order to increase awareness, drive visitor numbers and improve understanding of science in Manchester and beyond. The museum is part of the Science Museum Group, the world’s leading group of science museums.I led the move towards a more content-focused PR strategy, including, but not limited to, traditional media, blogs, owned platforms, and social media. My biggest success was bringing together previously disparate channel plans to form a cohesive whole that tells our story in a more engaging way and grows our audiences. Our blog traffic more than doubled since I introduced a new model for commissioning and promoting content, and thanks to an increased focus on content strategy and SEO the museum now ranks on the first page for several searches. I believe that freedom to experiment is key to the success of a PR team, and so we trialled Facebook and Instagram live, Instagram stories, live blogging, Twitter threads and hosted influencer events. Pleasingly, much of this social activity led in turn to press coverage, for example syndication of blogs to BBC Focus online.Projects included:* PR for the blockbuster Robots exhibition, including working with BBC Radio 4 to create their April Fool's joke of robots replacing vicars, and organising for RoboThespian to "co-host" Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone on 6 Music. * Full day of livestreaming from the Manchester Science Festival with BBC Arts looking at the science of opera - all three of our experiments featured on the BBC homepage to an audience of millions. * Working with the BBC to bring Children In Need to the museum for a live broadcast featuring a children's choir, fundraisers and - of course - Pudsey the Bear. * Overseeing multi-platform coverage of the arrival of Tim Peake's Soyuz spacecraft at the museum, including media, BBC radio outside broadcast, Facebook live broadcast, live blog and Instagram story.

Manchester, United Kingdom

I managed the press relations for four faculties at Manchester Metropolitan University - the Manchester School of Art, the Hollings Faculty (Tourism & Events, Food Technology and Fashion Technology), Humanities, Languages and Social Science, and the Cheshire campus (Exercise & Sport Science, Contemporary Arts, Abuse Studies, Outdoor Studies). This included developing media strategies for each department, sourcing stories and writing and pitching press releases to promote the good work of the University, handling media enquiries, writing copy for our website and internal communications portal and monitoring and updating our social media accounts. I coached academics in what to expect when they take part in media interviews and developed specialist training sessions which has so far trained more than 80 of our academics in the basics of working with the media. I also handled more unusual media enquiries, such as providing experts for Guardian live webchats or organising a podcast for BBC History magazine.I was also responsible for strategic analysis and evaluation of our PR projects, through quantitative and qualitative reporting.Projects included:• Revamping the university’s experts directory to provide a user-friendly resource for journalists. • Part of the launch team for the University's CIPR-award-winning alumni magazine, Met Magazine.• Handling the press for the Manchester Children’s Book Festival which was covered by a host of print and broadcast media including the Guardian and the BBC.• Developing media training sessions for our academics to help them feel more confident when talking to journalists.• Leading the press office's use of Skype for broadcast interviews.

The Bolton News/Bury Times

My role at The Bolton News encompassed writing about everything from fashion and the arts to breaking news, from short leads to full-length features. Each week I planned and wrote the features for our entertainment section, and managed the freelancers who contribute to the section. I also contributed to the news pages for both the Bolton News and Bury Times. Responsibilities:• To write high quality features for the news, leisure and entertainment sections of The Bolton News and The Bury Times to strict deadlines. • To maintain our social media profile, through my professional Twitter account, @KatDibbitsBN. For example, I suggested we use the hashtag #boltoncitystatusbid to encourage discussion of a story and to crowd source opinion. • To work with the Quark and Xscribe systems, as well as Microsoft Office and Google chat and documents. • To produce videos for our website, including shooting and editing video footage and audio. • To instruct photographers and picture desk as to what pictures are necessary for each article. • To manage freelance contributors.

At Moving Manchester I created, developed and implemented a range of features for the city's then-longest-running property and lifestyle magazine. These included a light-hearted guide to the arts events taking place around the city and in-depth investigations into the city centre property market. I even found myself in front of the camera as part of a photoshoot celebrating the opening

Leeds, United Kingdom

As the fashion editor of the award-winning Leeds Student I wrote about everything from finding vintage treasures to transforming catwalk looks for everyday wear, as well as regular round ups of the new season's trends. I also oversaw fashion shoots and commissioned other writers for pieces to be published in the paper. This position led to me winning the prestigious Daily Mirror/NUJ Student Fashion Journalist of the Year Award.

Ba (Hons), English Literature

English Literature, English Language, History