In this episode, Carrie-Ann Wade and Mary Whenman discuss Mary's career highlights and her advice and insight for aspiring communications directors.

Mary is Director, Group Communications at the British Business Bank, the UK’s economic development bank. Before moving in-house, Mary had a 25-year global agency career. She is a Fellow of the CIPR, has featured in the PR Week Powerbook since 2015 and was President of Women in PR 2015-2018.

The conversation ranges from holiday camps to high end diamonds, with everything in between. And Mary shares her experience of moving from agency to in-house. With advice on speaking truth to power when you are a communications leader, there are plenty of gems in this episode.

Behind the Bob, Diary of a Comms Director

Welcome to Behind the Bob, Diary of a Comms Director with Carrie-Ann Wade.

This podcast is all about developing communications leaders of the future and supporting you to grow and thrive in your comms career. You’ll hear from Carrie-Ann about her own personal experiences and insights and there might even be a special guest or two popping up.

The first series focused on diversity in the communications profession and how to create more opportunities for people to see communications as a profession they would like to work in. The second series explores the lives of communications directors to help inspire and support communications leaders of the future.

Behind the Bob gives you a sneak peek into life as a comms director and provides you with all the "behind the scenes" knowledge to help you thrive as a communications leader.

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed listening please share it, leave a rating or a review. It really does help the podcast reach more communicators!

New episodes of Behind the Bob are published on Wednesdays and you can always subscribe via your favourite podcast platform to ensure you don't miss an episode.

You can find out more about Carrie-Ann and Cat's Pajamas Communications at www.cats-pajamas.co.uk

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Carrie-Ann Wade: Welcome to Behind the Bob, Diary of a Comms Director with

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me, Carrie-Ann Wade.

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This

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Carrie-Ann Wade: podcast is all about developing communications leaders

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of the future and supporting you to grow and thrive in your comms career.

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You'll hear from me about my experiences and insights, and there might even

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be a special guest or two popping up.

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So I hope you enjoy.

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Welcome to this episode of Behind the Bob with me, Carrie-Ann, and I'm delighted

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to be here today with Mary Whenman, who is the Director of Group Communications

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with the British Business Bank.

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And I'm really excited that Mary's agreed to have this conversation with me today.

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So welcome, Mary.

Mary Whenman: 00:00:48

Thank you, Carrie-Ann.

Mary Whenman: 00:00:49

Delighted to be here.

Mary Whenman: 00:00:51

Carrie-Ann Wade: Brilliant.

Mary Whenman: 00:00:51

Thank you.

Mary Whenman: 00:00:52

As listeners will know in this series of Behind the Bob, we are talking

Mary Whenman: 00:00:56

to some brilliant communications directors to find out a little bit

Mary Whenman: 00:01:00

more, mostly because I'm nosy, but in the hope that it helps our listeners

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about those comms director's careers today, what's been the highs, lows, and

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advice that communications would give.

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give communications directors would give to people who are looking to take the

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next step in their leadership careers.

Mary Whenman: 00:01:18

So I'm really pleased that you're here, Mary, because I've followed you from

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afar and I know our paths have crossed through the PRCA and CIPR before, but

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I'm always excited to see your updates, mostly on LinkedIn, because I happen

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To say at this point you are also the leader of a multi award winning team.

Mary Whenman: 00:01:36

Not that there's any FOMO or jealousy over here, but it's brilliant to have you here.

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So I wondered if you wouldn't mind by starting off, Mary, just telling

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us a little bit about your career to date and why you decided that

Mary Whenman: 00:01:49

communications was the profession for you.

Mary Whenman: 00:01:53

Okay.

Mary Whenman: 00:01:53

Thank you, Carrie-Ann.

Mary Whenman: 00:01:55

I think my career is really fallen into two parts.

Mary Whenman: 00:01:58

I've had an agency career and I've had an in house career, but how did

Mary Whenman: 00:02:03

I actually get into public relations and communications in the first place?

Mary Whenman: 00:02:08

I'm actually one of those rare people who took an active decision that they wanted

Mary Whenman: 00:02:14

to go into a career in public relations.

Mary Whenman: 00:02:17

I think when you talk to many people, they've fallen into

Mary Whenman: 00:02:20

it or found it along the way.

Mary Whenman: 00:02:23

I actually became very interested in advertising when I was a teenager and I

Mary Whenman: 00:02:28

really thought that I wanted to go into a career in advertising and through a family

Mary Whenman: 00:02:33

friend, I knew somebody who was working at Leo Burnett, and I went in to talk to

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him about what a career in advertising was like when I was about 16 years old.

Mary Whenman: 00:02:44

And I don't know how I worked this out, but I somehow.

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decided after that meeting that advertising actually wasn't for me,

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because I, he talked me through the different roles of the strategist,

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the creative and the account handler.

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And I thought I don't want to narrow myself into one of those.

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I want to be all of those things.

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And then I found public relations through the CIPR and realized that if you work

Mary Whenman: 00:03:11

in communications you can actually do a combination of all those things and that

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seemed a lot more interesting to me.

Mary Whenman: 00:03:18

So when I was in the sixth form I actually went along to a CIPR careers day

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which was entirely geared at graduates.

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I'm not quite sure how I got into the careers day at such

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a young age but spent the day.

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learning all about public relations.

Mary Whenman: 00:03:36

And I was doing a business studies A level at the time and I decided that I wanted to

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go and do a business studies degree and I wanted to go to a university that offered

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a sandwich course so that in your third year you could go and work for a year.

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And out of my degree course of 180 people, I was the only person at

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the time who went and found their placement year with a PR agency.

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And that's how my career in PR started because I was then

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fortunate enough after securing that placement to go back to them.

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Into a permanent role after I graduated.

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So that's how I got into the industry.

Mary Whenman: 00:04:16

Carrie-Ann Wade: Brilliant.

Mary Whenman: 00:04:16

I feel like clearly lots of big aspirations, but also lots of clarity

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in terms of direction of travel, which as you say, might sound quite unusual

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to some of our listeners who may be a finding communications and a career in

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PR and comms through a different route.

Mary Whenman: 00:04:31

So I'm really, yeah, I'm really impressed at how much clarity you had at such a

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young age that's where you wanted to head.

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So that experience, going into the PR agency was what made you feel like.

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Then an entire career in comms was the right profession for you?

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Or did you wiggle off into different areas through your career?

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Have you stayed true to that comms path?

Mary Whenman: 00:04:53

No, I'm communications through and through.

Mary Whenman: 00:04:56

There's, a silver thread or a red thread going through me.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:00

That's all I've ever done.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:01

I was really lucky actually, because I started with a husband and wife

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team who ran a very small agency.

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And that was a fantastic training ground because it.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:09

taught me a number of things.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:11

It really taught me how a business is run.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:14

When you are, a very small team, you're very aware of the cash flow.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:20

And that is absolutely critical as anyone knows who, who sets up a small business.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:25

And also client service is absolutely critical because you're not going to

Mary Whenman: 00:05:28

get that cash flow if the client service and the delivery isn't impeccable.

Mary Whenman: 00:05:33

I was, I really learned that early on, and also one of the agency founders

Mary Whenman: 00:05:37

was a former journalist, and he's the one that really taught me how to write.

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So I think there's two critical skills you need in the early stages

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of your career that will then see you through writing and client service,

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whether it's in an agency or in house, and it's a stakeholder engagement.

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Though, that was the bedrock for that was established in that particular agency.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:01

And I worked for them for about two years after I graduated.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:05

And then I think having done three years with them by that point I

Mary Whenman: 00:06:09

needed to go and spread my wings.

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And spent a few months looking for a role in a much bigger agency

Mary Whenman: 00:06:16

where I could go and learn from new people and work on bigger brands.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:20

Carrie-Ann Wade: I love that.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:21

And I'm sure we'll touch on this as the conversation continues, Mary, but you

Mary Whenman: 00:06:25

mentioned that move from agency to in house and the fact that you've got, that

Mary Whenman: 00:06:29

experience on both sides, as it were.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:31

I just wondered if you did want to just touch on kind of, How you made

Mary Whenman: 00:06:35

that decision to move from agency to in house and what that felt like for you.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:41

Yes I made that decision quite late in my career,

Mary Whenman: 00:06:43

actually and I'd been in agency for about 20 to 25 years at that point.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:49

I'd got to a senior role as a managing director of the corporate

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financial and public affairs practice working at Weber Shamwick.

Mary Whenman: 00:06:57

And Weber Shalman at the time was the second largest global agency.

Mary Whenman: 00:07:02

I was running a 60 person team with a 9 million P& L in terms of revenue.

Mary Whenman: 00:07:09

So it was a really big business unit.

Mary Whenman: 00:07:12

We were the second largest business unit in EMEA after the German office.

Mary Whenman: 00:07:17

And I was reporting to the EMEA CEO.

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So I think I was also one of the only female leaders of a corporate practice

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in London at the time and it's great to see that there have been other women

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come through over the, over recent years to start to lead corporate and

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financial practices, because they just tend to be more the world for men.

Mary Whenman: 00:07:41

I was there in what I thought would be my dream job.

Mary Whenman: 00:07:45

And actually it's always a case of be careful what you wish for, isn't it?

Mary Whenman: 00:07:50

Because it ended up that it wasn't my dream job.

Mary Whenman: 00:07:53

And when you get to that level and you're running a 9 million P& L,

Mary Whenman: 00:07:58

you're spending a huge amount of time with your finance business

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partner pouring over spreadsheets.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:04

And you're up financial reporting.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:07

You're also delivering a lot of new business.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:10

And you might occasionally be able to do some client work.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:14

So the balance was just not right for me.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:18

And I wanted to get back to doing a lot more client work.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:22

And actually doing.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:25

the profession that I actually was trained to do, but wasn't really

Mary Whenman: 00:08:31

doing anymore because essentially I, I had got to this senior leadership

Mary Whenman: 00:08:36

role when I wasn't doing the practice or the craft of communications.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:41

So that was really what drove me to wanting to move in house.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:46

And one might think it would have been easy being the MD of one of the largest

Mary Whenman: 00:08:51

corporate financial practices in London to do that, but it really wasn't.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:55

And it was a huge challenge.

Mary Whenman: 00:08:57

So I think my, First piece of advice to people would be if you do want

Mary Whenman: 00:09:01

to make that move from agency to in house, you need to think very

Mary Whenman: 00:09:05

carefully about the timing of that.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:08

And I would say go earlier in your career than later.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:12

Carrie-Ann Wade: I love that.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:13

Thank you.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:14

I brilliant first piece of advice for this conversation.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:17

And I'm sure we'll come on to more shortly.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:20

And I will be asking you about even making that step up into a director

Mary Whenman: 00:09:24

kind of position, how that felt and how you knew that was right for you.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:28

But before we get to that, and I know we've We will come on to some challenges

Mary Whenman: 00:09:32

as well, but I'd be really keen to hear from you, Mary, about what you might

Mary Whenman: 00:09:36

consider some of the highlights of your comms career, and I'm sure there are

Mary Whenman: 00:09:40

absolutely loads, but if there are a couple that really stand out for you,

Mary Whenman: 00:09:44

it'd be brilliant to hear about them.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:46

It

Mary Whenman: 00:09:49

all of us have got clients or situations on our CV that we feel

Mary Whenman: 00:09:55

really propelled our career forward.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:58

I've got five of those.

Mary Whenman: 00:09:59

I won't go through all of them in detail or we won't get to the end of the podcast.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:03

But I think the first one was the launch of Orange, which was the first, the fourth

Mary Whenman: 00:10:08

mobile phone network to launch in the UK.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:12

And for All the youngsters out there, that's now what is known as ee.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:16

But orange was really revolutionary as a brand.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:20

And the orange launch, I would say, was equivalent in scale and media awareness

Mary Whenman: 00:10:26

as the launch of a new iPhone stay.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:29

And, I was working at Paragon Communications that is now an agency that

Mary Whenman: 00:10:34

doesn't exist anymore, but became Golan.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:38

And I was working there, it was a hundred person agency.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:42

We'd been appointed to Lord Chorringe about six years ago.

Mary Whenman: 00:10:44

Six weeks before launch and it was the best training ground on brand

Mary Whenman: 00:10:49

and also on integrated marketing communications, because we were working

Mary Whenman: 00:10:54

alongside the ad agency who was WCRS, we were working alongside the brand

Mary Whenman: 00:11:00

agency, which was more failings.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:02

And then there was, the direct marketing agency and multiple internal stakeholders.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:08

That was a fantastic grounding on how to work on a really big

Mary Whenman: 00:11:13

brand launch in an integrated way.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:16

When I left Paragon, I went through I went on to work at BIS Lancaster,

Mary Whenman: 00:11:22

that is now known as Euro RSCG.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:25

And there I worked on Butlins.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:26

And Butlins was one of my favourite pieces of business that I've

Mary Whenman: 00:11:30

ever worked on in my career.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:32

I Absolutely loved it.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:34

And it was at the time when Butlin's was going through a

Mary Whenman: 00:11:38

lot of challenges as a brand.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:40

They were appearing on the consumer affairs program watchdog

Mary Whenman: 00:11:43

on an almost weekly basis.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:45

They just lost a million pounds of bookings in one weekend due to

Mary Whenman: 00:11:50

a drug scandal that was splashed all over the Sunday Red Tops.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:55

We were brought in about a month after that.

Mary Whenman: 00:11:58

And I worked for the chief executive.

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There was a man called Tony Marshall.

Mary Whenman: 00:12:03

And Tony was one of those characters that you meet once or twice in your career.

Mary Whenman: 00:12:08

And he previously worked with Eric Morley on the Miss World contest.

Mary Whenman: 00:12:14

He was a hospitality and entertainment CEO through and through.

Mary Whenman: 00:12:19

He was from Leeds, and I remember in the pitch, He just turned to us and

Mary Whenman: 00:12:25

said who's doing the crisis management?

Mary Whenman: 00:12:27

Who's doing the sex drugs and alcohol?

Mary Whenman: 00:12:30

And I remember I shot back at him and I said, that would be me, but do you mean

Mary Whenman: 00:12:35

on a personal or professional basis?

Mary Whenman: 00:12:38

And my CEO shot me a death stare.

Mary Whenman: 00:12:43

And I wanted the room to, to just open up and swallow me and Tony,

Mary Whenman: 00:12:49

the CEO looked at me and he said, you are the woman for the job.

Mary Whenman: 00:12:52

You're hired.

Mary Whenman: 00:12:53

Still obviously had a stern talking to in the taxi after the

Mary Whenman: 00:12:57

pitch from my agency boss was very pleased that we won the account.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:02

I still can't believe I said that, and

Mary Whenman: 00:13:04

Carrie-Ann Wade: was a lesson in, yeah, a lesson in reading

Mary Whenman: 00:13:07

the room though and knowing

Mary Whenman: 00:13:08

I obviously for some way clicked with him and then I worked three.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:14

Went around the country and did three years of crisis management and brand

Mary Whenman: 00:13:19

protection and brand building for Butlin's and it was probably the most fun piece of

Mary Whenman: 00:13:25

business that I've worked on in my career.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:27

There are other clients that I've worked on.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:31

I then went from Butlin's.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:33

to the other extreme and worked on to beers the diamond mining company.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:38

And that was fascinating because that was really where I came in touch with

Mary Whenman: 00:13:42

management consultants for the first time and the beers at the time had been the

Mary Whenman: 00:13:47

management consultancy and they needed to completely change their business strategy.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:53

So we worked alongside Bain.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:55

I was working at Hill Knowlton at the time.

Mary Whenman: 00:13:58

And we did a huge global strategy change for De Beers.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:03

And the role that Hill Knowlton fulfilled, and I was a core member

Mary Whenman: 00:14:07

of the team, was delivering all the communications for that global strategy

Mary Whenman: 00:14:12

change, both internally and externally.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:14

And of course, the whole diamond industry, which is probably one of the most

Mary Whenman: 00:14:17

complex industries I've ever worked with.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:20

So I think those are some of my highlights in the sort of first part of my career.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:27

Carrie-Ann Wade: Brilliant.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:27

I love them.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:28

It's from holiday camps to high end diamonds and everything in between,

Mary Whenman: 00:14:32

it sounds like so brilliant and some great lessons in reading the

Mary Whenman: 00:14:36

room and knowing your audience.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:37

So even though you've got that stern talking to, I'm talking to and clearly at

Mary Whenman: 00:14:40

work say, well done you, that's brilliant.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:43

Thank you.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:44

I guess I'd like to move us on and I could hear about your highlights for the rest of

Mary Whenman: 00:14:48

the podcast, but I know our listeners will want me to ask some more questions of you.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:52

But I guess I was interested to understand Mary.

Mary Whenman: 00:14:56

How did you decide that taking that step up to become a director and work

Mary Whenman: 00:15:00

at a director level in your comms career was the right choice for you?

Mary Whenman: 00:15:05

I think I'm quite an ambitious person.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:08

And so it was it's always been something for me that I always

Mary Whenman: 00:15:13

want to move up to the next level.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:16

And so it just felt like a natural progression.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:19

When I was going through my agency career and, I think the first really

Mary Whenman: 00:15:23

big milestone in your agency career is to get to account director.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:27

That really is the golden ticket, isn't it?

Mary Whenman: 00:15:30

And you feel you're on your way.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:32

And then from there, you're moving up to associate director.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:36

And I got my directorship in agency when I was at Hill Knowlton.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:42

And going onto the board and I remember my chair sitting down with me and giving

Mary Whenman: 00:15:47

me a whole induction around what it meant and my fiduciary responsibilities.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:51

And it felt like a really big moment for me.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:55

And I think once I got to that level.

Mary Whenman: 00:15:58

It was ensuring that I stayed at that level and I was able to maintain being a

Mary Whenman: 00:16:05

director and then moving to in my, my next role as a director and consolidating that.

Mary Whenman: 00:16:12

And then I think I definitely knew that I wanted to become an MD but the

Mary Whenman: 00:16:17

challenge I had at the time was when I was a director in agency that's

Mary Whenman: 00:16:21

when I my husband and I chose to have our family and we had three children.

Mary Whenman: 00:16:25

So during that period, I actually worked as an interim because I

Mary Whenman: 00:16:30

knew that I couldn't and didn't want to work five days a week.

Mary Whenman: 00:16:33

So I chose to work three days a week for six years, but I set myself up as

Mary Whenman: 00:16:39

an interim doing sort of senior level assignments largely for former clients

Mary Whenman: 00:16:44

or people I knew in the industry.

Mary Whenman: 00:16:47

And I was continuously employed in that period, working on projects

Mary Whenman: 00:16:51

that would last anywhere between three and sort of 12 months.

Mary Whenman: 00:16:55

And so it was when I got to the point at which I knew I wanted

Mary Whenman: 00:17:00

to go back into a permanent role.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:03

That's when I was able to step up to managing director in an agency.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:09

And at that point I had three directors reporting to me.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:13

And that was I think.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:16

The key thing is what is the difference between an MD and I think as the MD

Mary Whenman: 00:17:23

you've got to have that, a far broader outlook and, the buck really does stop

Mary Whenman: 00:17:30

with you in an agency environment.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:33

In terms of being a director in in house role.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:37

I think it, what Director of Communications means in different size

Mary Whenman: 00:17:42

organizations can be quite different.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:45

So I think if you were in a FTSE 100 and you're a Director of Communications, you

Mary Whenman: 00:17:50

actually might be working in a single line business unit with a group corporate

Mary Whenman: 00:17:56

affairs director to whom you report.

Mary Whenman: 00:17:59

In my organization, which is a medium sized organization as director of

Mary Whenman: 00:18:05

communications, I'm working right across the entire group across internal

Mary Whenman: 00:18:10

communications, external communications, and then you get involved in so many

Mary Whenman: 00:18:15

things that you never imagined that communications director gets involved in.

Mary Whenman: 00:18:20

And then at the other end you could be a startup business of five people

Mary Whenman: 00:18:25

and it's really important to look bigger than you are, and you need to

Mary Whenman: 00:18:28

hire a director of communications.

Mary Whenman: 00:18:30

So it means different things, I think, in different sized organizations.

Mary Whenman: 00:18:35

But for me I always wanted that sort of achievement that came with it.

Mary Whenman: 00:18:41

Carrie-Ann Wade: I love that.

Mary Whenman: 00:18:41

I think that's a really good point for listeners to consider if they're

Mary Whenman: 00:18:46

thinking about moving up in their communications career to that next level.

Mary Whenman: 00:18:50

That point about actually what does being a director of communications

Mary Whenman: 00:18:54

mean will be different depending on maybe the sector or like you say, the

Mary Whenman: 00:18:58

size of organization that you're in.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:00

So definitely something for people to think about as they're

Mary Whenman: 00:19:03

making choices about which step they take next in their career.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:07

I think so a great point made there, Mary.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:10

If you're an aspiring communications leader who's looking for a safe space to

Mary Whenman: 00:19:14

work through your next steps or you want to become more boundaried and intentional

Mary Whenman: 00:19:17

in the workplace or even in your career, why not check out the individual and

Mary Whenman: 00:19:22

group mentoring offers with Cats Pajamas.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:24

You can find out more at cats-pajamas.co.Uk or over on our socials.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:30

All the links are in the show notes.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:33

You touched on earlier a little bit, you started to talk about

Mary Whenman: 00:19:36

challenges within your career.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:38

So I wondered if you could share with us what you feel like your biggest challenge

Mary Whenman: 00:19:43

has been as a communications director.

Mary Whenman: 00:19:46

So once you've made that step up into directorship, what do

Mary Whenman: 00:19:50

you feel has been maybe one of your biggest challenges there?

Mary Whenman: 00:19:53

I think one of the biggest challenges for any communications

Mary Whenman: 00:19:57

director is speaking truth to power and knowing how you need to deliver

Mary Whenman: 00:20:03

that and when you need to deliver that.

Mary Whenman: 00:20:07

There's a former communications director who some listeners might know, a guy

Mary Whenman: 00:20:12

called Mike Love and Mike has held many senior roles in his career and he's

Mary Whenman: 00:20:19

now retired, but I always remember.

Mary Whenman: 00:20:23

listening to him at a conference or reading something he'd written and he gave

Mary Whenman: 00:20:26

a very good and pertinent piece of advice.

Mary Whenman: 00:20:30

And he said if you work in agency and give a client some bad advice,

Mary Whenman: 00:20:34

there aren't any real consequences.

Mary Whenman: 00:20:36

But if you work in house, there are.

Mary Whenman: 00:20:38

you could lose your job.

Mary Whenman: 00:20:40

And I remember in my very first in house role in the first difficult

Mary Whenman: 00:20:44

situation I was having to deal with, thinking of that piece, not really

Mary Whenman: 00:20:50

advice, just a statement, isn't it?

Mary Whenman: 00:20:52

And that was resonating in my head.

Mary Whenman: 00:20:54

And I think when you work in house, if you're in a particularly small team and

Mary Whenman: 00:20:59

you might There might not be any other communications professionals around you,

Mary Whenman: 00:21:03

other than the team reporting to you.

Mary Whenman: 00:21:06

It can feel a very lonely and isolating place.

Mary Whenman: 00:21:10

Fortunately, the role I'm in now, whilst I am, the most senior person in

Mary Whenman: 00:21:17

communications working across the whole group, I know that there are plenty of

Mary Whenman: 00:21:22

people internally I can go to if I want a second opinion or a sounding board.

Mary Whenman: 00:21:28

And also it's really important to establish those relationships with

Mary Whenman: 00:21:32

your external agency so that you can check in with them when you're ready.

Mary Whenman: 00:21:36

difficult or challenging situation.

Mary Whenman: 00:21:39

But I think without doubt the most challenging professional period

Mary Whenman: 00:21:43

for me and also for my team was the pandemic as it probably was

Mary Whenman: 00:21:48

for many communications directors.

Mary Whenman: 00:21:50

Just a bit of background, the British Business Bank is the

Mary Whenman: 00:21:53

UK's economic development bank.

Mary Whenman: 00:21:55

And so when the pandemic happened, we were called in by government to

Mary Whenman: 00:22:01

deliver the government's response.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:03

to support small businesses through the pandemic.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:06

And what that meant was that on the 11th of March in 2020, the Chancellor

Mary Whenman: 00:22:11

stood up in Parliament and announced a business support programme that was

Mary Whenman: 00:22:16

going to be delivered to small businesses that would launch 12 the 23rd of March.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:23

It was the bank who was having to deliver that.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:26

And it was my team who were having to do a whole product launch to get millions

Mary Whenman: 00:22:31

of pounds of funding out into the market for small businesses in 12 days flat.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:36

Now obviously we were part of a team of a few hundred people doing this.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:41

And we launched that scheme.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:44

And we, it sounds very naive now.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:46

That's really what we thought we were doing.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:48

We were just launching a scheme.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:49

And everyone would think this is marvellous and aren't we wonderful,

Mary Whenman: 00:22:52

saving all these small businesses.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:54

But literally within days, the scheme started to receive

Mary Whenman: 00:22:57

criticism from the media.

Mary Whenman: 00:22:59

And then we were asked to launch another programme.

Mary Whenman: 00:23:03

And we launched another program a few weeks later and then we were asked

Mary Whenman: 00:23:06

to launch something called the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, which I'm sure most

Mary Whenman: 00:23:10

people listening to this have heard of and it's received a lot of media

Mary Whenman: 00:23:13

attention and public scrutiny since it was launched four years ago now.

Mary Whenman: 00:23:19

And finally we launched something called the Future Fund in the May,

Mary Whenman: 00:23:23

so in the space of eight weeks.

Mary Whenman: 00:23:26

The bank had launched four huge business support programs.

Mary Whenman: 00:23:32

So we were all working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to get all of this

Mary Whenman: 00:23:38

up and out into the market, but then also dealing with a very intense level.

Mary Whenman: 00:23:44

Of public scrutiny, media scrutiny scrutiny from parliamentarians.

Mary Whenman: 00:23:49

And that actually went on for about two years.

Mary Whenman: 00:23:53

We were in, in that state and we went through numerous select committees

Mary Whenman: 00:23:57

National Audit Office reports were written about these different programs.

Mary Whenman: 00:24:02

And so to be in the middle of that for a two year period was very intense.

Mary Whenman: 00:24:06

And it was one Christmas I was reflecting and I was re I read a

Mary Whenman: 00:24:11

blog by an Australian firefighter who is a specialist in something

Mary Whenman: 00:24:16

called long term incident management and the impact that has on teens.

Mary Whenman: 00:24:20

And I read it and I thought, my goodness, This is the situation we are in.

Mary Whenman: 00:24:23

And I then contacted Amanda Coleman from the industry, who many listeners

Mary Whenman: 00:24:29

will have heard of, who's worked in high profile incidents, and is now a trainer.

Mary Whenman: 00:24:36

And I said, I need you to come in and help my team because we need to

Mary Whenman: 00:24:39

get ourselves out of this situation and out of this permanent state of

Mary Whenman: 00:24:46

operating in a crisis environment.

Mary Whenman: 00:24:48

We need to get back to operating in business as usual.

Mary Whenman: 00:24:52

And so she, she ran some sessions with us and it was absolutely what

Mary Whenman: 00:24:58

we needed and that really enabled us.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:01

to get out of that state that we've been in for two years and

Mary Whenman: 00:25:04

to go back to business as usual.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:07

Carrie-Ann Wade: Thank you.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:08

And as you're talking about the pandemic, it's given me flashbacks as to what it

Mary Whenman: 00:25:12

was like in my own communications team at the time, but we definitely weren't

Mary Whenman: 00:25:16

launching four major programs like that in, in the space of eight weeks.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:21

I guess there are a couple of things I just wanted to touch on that you said.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:24

And one, you talked there a bit about resilience and kind of the

Mary Whenman: 00:25:28

impact on teams, but I guess.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:30

I was interested to hear from you about, your thoughts as a communications

Mary Whenman: 00:25:35

director about how you manage your own wellbeing and where you seek support.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:40

And you talked about how relationships are key to that support, when

Mary Whenman: 00:25:44

you're working at that really senior level as a leader and you are.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:48

day in day out, maybe facing that public scrutiny or dealing with lots of media.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:52

I was just interested to know how you look after yourself as a comms director.

Mary Whenman: 00:25:57

I don't think I'm particularly good at looking after myself.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:03

I think my father ran his own business.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:06

Looking back on my childhood, my father was an absolute workaholic and

Mary Whenman: 00:26:10

he worked six days a week and we, I'd occasionally see him on a Sunday even

Mary Whenman: 00:26:14

though we lived in the same house.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:16

And I've definitely got that trait.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:17

I am a, bit of a workaholic.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:20

And I will do whatever the situation demands of me.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:24

But I think the reason we got through it is we're a very strong team.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:30

We all supported one another.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:32

And also everybody within the bank.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:35

because we were all collectively in this situation, whether you

Mary Whenman: 00:26:39

worked in an investment team or the legal team or you were in one

Mary Whenman: 00:26:43

of the product teams, we were all collectively in this situation together.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:48

So everybody was naturally supportive of one another.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:52

Although we were working very long hours.

Mary Whenman: 00:26:57

It was important to understand when people needed a break.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:00

So in the sort of that first six month period that was incredibly intense,

Mary Whenman: 00:27:05

people did have to work through weekends.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:08

I remember taking, I think, two days off over the Easter weekend and thinking

Mary Whenman: 00:27:13

it was the most fantastic thing.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:15

And then, when it came to the sort of the Maybank holidays,

Mary Whenman: 00:27:18

other team members got to work.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:19

took that time off.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:21

So we weren't unfortunately a large enough team at the time to operate

Mary Whenman: 00:27:26

a rotor system, which I know a lot of, large in house teams and

Mary Whenman: 00:27:29

government departments are able to do.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:32

We just didn't have the luxury of that.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:34

I was able to bring in some additional interim support which was really helpful.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:40

And I think key is also You know, we were all in the middle

Mary Whenman: 00:27:45

of the pandemic at the time.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:47

And I think key for me was, making sure that I did focus on my children

Mary Whenman: 00:27:52

and my family and that really helped.

Mary Whenman: 00:27:54

But I think that I was very fortunate because that was a very different

Mary Whenman: 00:27:58

situation to a lot of the members of my team were either living on their own in a

Mary Whenman: 00:28:03

flat or they were living in a house share.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:06

And it might've been that some of their You know, the housemates were

Mary Whenman: 00:28:10

for loads and they were the only one working and that was very challenging.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:14

So it was ensuring that people could take the time out for the things they wanted.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:18

One member of my team it was really important to her that she

Mary Whenman: 00:28:21

was able to go and play tennis.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:23

In a socially distance way, obviously, and do online yoga.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:26

And she'd just say I need to go to my online yoga class now.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:30

And so it was respecting people's the way people needed to decompress and relax.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:37

And that was really important.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:39

I think I'm personally not particularly good , as I said at finding the downtime.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:45

But I think.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:46

It is ensuring that everyone does get that downtime that they need in the

Mary Whenman: 00:28:50

way in which they personally need it, which is different for every person.

Mary Whenman: 00:28:55

Carrie-Ann Wade: Yeah, I think that's really helpful, isn't it?

Mary Whenman: 00:28:57

To consider what a person needs to help their wellbeing and to support them

Mary Whenman: 00:29:01

at challenging times in the workplace.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:04

And like you say, that's not going to be the same for everybody.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:06

So I think you've done a brilliant job in managing your

Mary Whenman: 00:29:09

way through that with your team.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:10

So thanks for sharing.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:12

On the flip side of the biggest challenge you've talked it.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:15

about a few of your highlights from your agency career already.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:19

I wondered if you would like to talk about what you might consider to be your biggest

Mary Whenman: 00:29:23

success as a communications director, if there is one that springs to mind,

Mary Whenman: 00:29:28

or it might be, I don't know, something in terms of the way that you've worked

Mary Whenman: 00:29:31

as a comms director through your career.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:34

I think probably the work I've done at the bank, I would

Mary Whenman: 00:29:38

like to say is my biggest success.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:40

When I joined the bank, the communications team was a team of four.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:45

And pretty much everything was done off the side of a desk.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:49

And I've, built a far bigger team.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:51

I've established the internal communications function from scratch.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:55

I've established the social media capability from scratch.

Mary Whenman: 00:29:58

And also I think, Before the pandemic, the communications team was probably

Mary Whenman: 00:30:05

considered the good news department.

Mary Whenman: 00:30:08

And once we'd launched the first of the business support programs in the pandemic

Mary Whenman: 00:30:14

and started to track the media coverage immediately the day, the following

Mary Whenman: 00:30:19

day, we have a seat at the table.

Mary Whenman: 00:30:22

And what I went about doing was demonstrating the strategic importance

Mary Whenman: 00:30:28

of communications, particularly in management decision making.

Mary Whenman: 00:30:32

And we had some criticism around some operational issues.

Mary Whenman: 00:30:36

And so I was ensuring that in the daily media report.

Mary Whenman: 00:30:41

That was all included, this, and also including who are the stakeholders

Mary Whenman: 00:30:46

who are commenting on that because you, that's, it's a fantastic way

Mary Whenman: 00:30:49

to do your stakeholder mapping.

Mary Whenman: 00:30:51

And it became a daily agenda item on the standard every morning.

Mary Whenman: 00:30:58

giving an update on that and that really established the function

Mary Whenman: 00:31:03

as a strategic capability.

Mary Whenman: 00:31:05

And as a result I and my team, we now manage also, the chief executives.

Mary Whenman: 00:31:12

Media engagement and profile and the chairs media engagement profile

Mary Whenman: 00:31:17

that wasn't happening when I first joined the bank six years ago.

Mary Whenman: 00:31:22

So I think that's probably the biggest success in terms of, if I

Mary Whenman: 00:31:27

were to leave tomorrow what have you left behind and I've left behind, a

Mary Whenman: 00:31:31

well respected team that is in the meeting room when decisions are made.

Mary Whenman: 00:31:37

I'd also look back and say I'm very proud of the work that we did with De Beers.

Mary Whenman: 00:31:42

I've it was a real moment for that organization and to be involved in

Mary Whenman: 00:31:48

the change of strategy for a business that is the global market leader.

Mary Whenman: 00:31:54

means you're actually changing an entire industry.

Mary Whenman: 00:31:59

And I think once you've worked on a project like that, not a lot phases you

Mary Whenman: 00:32:03

after that, when you're presented with a substantial project to deliver for

Mary Whenman: 00:32:10

either your own company or a client.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:12

Carrie-Ann Wade: Brilliant.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:13

And I'm hearing lots in there about as well as that importance of your

Mary Whenman: 00:32:17

role in helping to position the function as a strategic function.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:21

There's something about how you're demonstrating the value add from

Mary Whenman: 00:32:24

communications at that strategic level.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:27

And I think it's something that lots of communicators talk about in different

Mary Whenman: 00:32:30

spaces around how important that sort of evaluation and demonstrating

Mary Whenman: 00:32:34

the impact that you're having is.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:36

So I think some real life examples from you about why that's important

Mary Whenman: 00:32:40

in terms of supporting the function and yourself as a comms director.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:44

So the final bit that I wanted to talk about with you Mary is probably the reason

Mary Whenman: 00:32:50

why a lot of our listeners are here.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:53

So now we've got the context about all of your amazing

Mary Whenman: 00:32:56

experience in your career to date.

Mary Whenman: 00:32:59

I really wanted to ask you what advice you might give to aspiring

Mary Whenman: 00:33:04

communications directors and leaders.

Mary Whenman: 00:33:06

So I work a lot with people who are just thinking about whether they

Mary Whenman: 00:33:10

want to take that next step and step up into that leadership space, or

Mary Whenman: 00:33:14

they've maybe been comms point of view and are now on wondering whether

Mary Whenman: 00:33:19

or not to make that break for it and go for a director level role.

Mary Whenman: 00:33:24

I would be interested to hear from you, Mary, based on your own experience, what

Mary Whenman: 00:33:27

advice you might give to those listeners.

Mary Whenman: 00:33:31

Okay, thank you.

Mary Whenman: 00:33:32

I think one benefit that your listeners have that probably wasn't there,

Mary Whenman: 00:33:38

or I certainly wasn't cognizant of earlier in my career, is I think

Mary Whenman: 00:33:43

there's far more focus now on actually proactively managing your career.

Mary Whenman: 00:33:48

And although people might think having listened to this podcast and

Mary Whenman: 00:33:53

might look at my LinkedIn and think that's a very well managed career.

Mary Whenman: 00:33:57

I would say most of my job moves were not accidental, but they weren't that planned.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:03

It was just like, Oh, I like the look of that.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:05

I'll go and do that.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:07

Whereas I think nowadays people are far more strategic and thoughtful.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:10

Thoughtful and they plan their careers.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:14

And I really didn't do that.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:16

And so I think the fact that people are thinking about that and planning

Mary Whenman: 00:34:20

their careers is a real step forward.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:23

I think I touched on it earlier, I think if you do want to move from

Mary Whenman: 00:34:27

agency to in-house or you do want to move in an in-house role up.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:31

to a director level or a head of level.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:34

I think it's all about timing and working out when the timing is right

Mary Whenman: 00:34:39

for you and when you are ready to take on that extra responsibility.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:44

I got some very good advice.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:46

from the CEO of the second agency I worked in and she she was a female

Mary Whenman: 00:34:51

chief executive, which was quite rare at the time and very successful.

Mary Whenman: 00:34:55

And she said always act and behave for the job you want to

Mary Whenman: 00:35:00

do, not the job you are doing.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:01

So it's always being that step ahead.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:03

So if you do want to take that step up.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:07

It's starting to look at the people in the level above you.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:10

How do they behave?

Mary Whenman: 00:35:12

What sort of projects are they taking on?

Mary Whenman: 00:35:14

Wait, where you can really demonstrate your value.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:18

And I think there's a number of traits people need.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:21

And then a really good communicator brings the outside world in.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:26

And you need to be read might sound like a a slightly old fashioned expression,

Mary Whenman: 00:35:31

but what I mean is you need to be across all your social media news feeds,

Mary Whenman: 00:35:35

really understand what's going on.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:37

You need to be listening to the right news commentators.

Mary Whenman: 00:35:42

I'm obviously talking here, if you work in the world of corporate communications,

Mary Whenman: 00:35:45

if you work in brand communications, you'll be listening to influencers

Mary Whenman: 00:35:49

and different people, but the people within the orbit in which you work

Mary Whenman: 00:35:54

in, you need to be absolutely sucking that information in so that when

Mary Whenman: 00:35:58

you're in meetings with senior people.

Mary Whenman: 00:36:01

You can use these anecdotes.

Mary Whenman: 00:36:03

You can say, oh I, I read in the Financial Times, or I was just in the Today program

Mary Whenman: 00:36:07

this morning, they make this really relevant point that it's important to our

Mary Whenman: 00:36:10

organization, or there's new trend data that's coming out from different polling

Mary Whenman: 00:36:16

organizations or research organizations.

Mary Whenman: 00:36:20

So it's really being that outside in and having that very big

Mary Whenman: 00:36:24

picture view that is really valued.

Mary Whenman: 00:36:26

It's also ensuring that you're talking the language of the C suite.

Mary Whenman: 00:36:33

So although I went into a career in public relations when I was 21 years

Mary Whenman: 00:36:39

old, I don't consider myself as having a career in public relations now.

Mary Whenman: 00:36:45

I work in communications and I've ensured that I've established myself as a

Mary Whenman: 00:36:49

strategic communicator as, and my function as a strategic communications function.

Mary Whenman: 00:36:55

And so I talk in the language of the board, which is about reputational

Mary Whenman: 00:37:00

risk, reputation management.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:02

And that's really important.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:04

If you want to be considered for a senior role, you need to talk the language You

Mary Whenman: 00:37:09

also need to understand the basics like what's the difference between a mission,

Mary Whenman: 00:37:13

a vision, values and objectives and what's the difference between a business

Mary Whenman: 00:37:18

objective and a strategic objective.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:20

Because this will become your everyday common parlance when

Mary Whenman: 00:37:25

you get into a senior role.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:27

I think it's also a final bit of advice.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:30

So I could go on forever with advice is, it's being that

Mary Whenman: 00:37:35

person that gets things done.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:37

It's the whole Barack Obama approach, isn't it?

Mary Whenman: 00:37:39

Be that person who gets stuff done.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:42

Say yes, take on that project and deliver the project without having to be chased.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:47

Go and ask your line manager for support and questions when you need it.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:51

But if you then build a reputation for being that trustworthy

Mary Whenman: 00:37:55

person that can get stuff done, you'll get given more projects.

Mary Whenman: 00:37:59

And those projects will become high profile projects within your organization.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:04

And that's the sort of thing that leads to promotions and for you to

Mary Whenman: 00:38:07

be considered for a leadership role.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:10

Carrie-Ann Wade: I love it.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:10

Some real nuggets in there, Mary, for our listeners in terms of how they might want

Mary Whenman: 00:38:15

to start thinking, how they might want to.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:17

start operating.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:18

And I would definitely say for listeners who for some of this is resonated, but

Mary Whenman: 00:38:22

maybe feels a bit scary, especially that step up into the C suite, which

Mary Whenman: 00:38:26

like you say, is a whole new language sometimes for you to learn that there

Mary Whenman: 00:38:30

will definitely be opportunities for people to maybe shadow others that

Mary Whenman: 00:38:34

are already in that space or seek some mentoring from people who've already.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:39

walked the walk so that they can really get used to speak in that language and

Mary Whenman: 00:38:43

having those types of conversations.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:45

So I think some really brilliant advice in there, Mary.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:48

Thank you so much.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:50

I'm really grateful that you've been on the podcast today

Mary Whenman: 00:38:53

sharing a bit more about you.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:54

And I feel like I've learned lots about your career to date.

Mary Whenman: 00:38:58

And I'm excited to see maybe what happens next.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:00

Because you're always, your team's always there winning awards or leading the way.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:04

So it feels like you're doing plenty of trailblazing for the profession.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:08

So thank you so much for that, Mary.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:10

And I've really appreciated talking to you today.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:13

Thank you on behalf of the listeners.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:15

Thank you so much, Carrie-Ann.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:17

It's been a real pleasure talking to you.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:21

Carrie-Ann Wade: Thank you for listening to this episode of Behind the Bob.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:24

I'd love for you to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform

Mary Whenman: 00:39:27

and leave a rating or a review.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:30

You can also engage with me over on the socials.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:32

I'm on Insta and X at @catspjs_uk of course you can find me over on LinkedIn.

Mary Whenman: 00:39:39

Hope to catch up with you soon.