Paula Simmons Email & Phone Number

London Area, United Kingdom

Partnering with agencies and client organisations (freelance or contract) to deliver strategic insight and consulting around employer brand.Practically this means working with People and Recruitment teams to help them better understand the key drivers, motivators and perspectives of their current employees/ target audiences, and to build their key messages accordingly. My services include:- Persona development- Value proposition development – organisation-wide or for particular skill sets or career stages- Strategic insight delivery, via focus groups and workshop (design and delivery); 1-1 interviews, online surveys and desk research- Key stakeholder engagement, management and reporting up to board level- Strategy design- Creative partnering – briefing creative teams to translate the insights I have generated into creative concepts and copy - either in conjunction with clients’ own in-house teams/ agencies, or through the creatives at Pinstripe + Leopard, the employer brand collective of which I am a founding consultant.I’m experienced at working across both private and public sector clients, regionally, nationally and internationally.

Alongside being freelance, I am one of the founding consultants at this independent employer brand collective. We offer in-house People teams and Recruitment teams agency-quality research insights, strategy and creative expressions so they can better engage their current and target talent even if their budgets are more modest.

London, United Kingdom

Headed up the delivery of employer brand-related research and insight to clients. This involved the development of EVPs and the identification of territories that form the basis for marketplace standout. It also involved generating non EVP-focused insights designed to help clients understand and engage specific skill sets (TVPs and personas); and/or to dovetail with internal culture change programmes. In my role I:Delivered of all aspects of brand insight projects – from taking briefs, pitching for business, undertaking research and analysis, and presenting back to core client teams and their cross-functional stakeholders internally.Worked with our creative team to ensure insights were reflected in the creative process - i.e. concepts and messaging for bespoke campaigns, or the development of organisation-wide employer brands. Oversaw the delivery of insight projects run by other insight team members and through associates. Was responsible for the design of the agency’s insight solutions, the design and development of the agency’s EDI auditing products, and the agency's qual research amongst under-represented audiences.Worked across a range of private and public sector clients regionally, nationally and internationally, including Novo Nordisk, Direct Line Group, Sainsbury’s, Lloyds Banking Group, Maersk, Amazon; Central Government departments (e.g. Defra and MOD), NHS trusts (e.g. Central Manchester University Hospital Trust), a range of local authorities such as Essex and Surrey County Councils and universities, including Sheffield, Manchester and Reading.

London, United Kingdom

Responsible for helping clients shape their employer brand strategies through the provision of meaningful, actionable insight that drives organisational performance. Included strategies to clarify their propositions for entire work forces, or to better communicate with specific skill sets and/ or hard to reach audiences. It also included strategies to strengthen employee engagement. As part of my role, I led on diversity communications.

London, United Kingdom

Helped clients create employer brands that resonate with the people they need to drive organisational strategy and performance. That meant gathering, interpreting and delivering the insight that informs the development of communication strategies - particularly creative and channel planning, for internal and external audiences. Worked with a range of stakeholders - from board level executives and clients' existing staff; to external employee audiences - including those with scarce and/or niche skill sets. Led TMP's work aimed at helping clients achieve greater diversity in their workforces.

London, England, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

In this role, I ran the corporate desk of this PR focused recruitment agency, working with clients ranging from professional services through to engineering/ infrastructure and property companies. My focus was helping them to hire senior PR professionals, using knowledge gained from having originally been one myself.

London, United Kingdom

My role at Virgin Unite was two-fold. Firstly it involved working with the individual Virgin businesses to engage them with Richard Branson's charitable trust, which was established to play a role in tackling some of the world's big challenges. The second, was working with some of the charities through which Virgin Unite sought to make a difference to help them achieve sustainability and benefit from the business acumen housed with Virgin Group.

London, United Kingdom

Maternity cover at this socially-focused communications agency, during which time I was in day to day charge of accounts and wrote proposals.

London, United Kingdom

Maternity cover at this agency, which focuses on working with the private and public sector to provide educational materials for schools. My role here was as a key member of their business development team helping to grow the business through existing and new clients.

London, United Kingdom

Here, I helped set up the London office of what was originally called Beattie Media before it become Beattie Communications. In this role I was responsible for running the B2B side of the agency's business, including new business, client management, team management and profit and loss. My client base included well-known names and a range of SME and start ups.

London, United Kingdom

Education record

Medieval And Modern History, Specialised In Diplomatic History