I founded Spring PR twenty years ago and in that time have grown the business from a sole trader with one client, to a limited company with five employees and a wealth of outdoor brands on our books. One of our first-ever brands, Polartec, I am proud to say, is still a client of Spring. Although company owner, I am still very much involved in the day to day running and management of the business. I liaise daily with my clients offering innovative, creative marketing solutions and ideas. My industry contacts are second to none – and I still believe in traditional media relations with many of the well-known industry journalists being personal friends of mine. Achievements and Highlights Spring has staged some incredibly memorable events over the years, often generating 100 per cent media coverage from a 100 per cent media attendance. Spring’s annual ‘Camp Out’ is now recognised as a truly refreshing networking event for between media, brands and ambassadors and offers exclusive product testing opportunities. We were the agency which helped to bring Osprey to the UK market, and continued to work with them for 12 years until large enough to have their own in-house marketing department. The Future Spring started as a PR company and is now a complete marketing solutions company. Although well-established we are proud of ability to move with the times. We are now focusing on planning and executing social media campaigns for our clients, including management of their pages and feeds. Our events are becoming more and more bespoke. And working with analytics to finely tune our targeting whilst continuing to nurture the community that is our brands.

Working in Front Page Creations was my introduction to the outdoors and journalism. Fresh out of college I was trained by Carlton Reid [owner of the former Front Page Creations] in journalism and public relations. There I handled the PR for outdoor brands Snugpak, Sprayway and Pertex. I also wrote for the trade magazine Cycle Industry [which later became BikeBiz] and consumer magazine On Your Bike [which was later sold to Emap who were later bought by Bauer Media].