Working on the B2B team, my accounts include digital, tech and charity clients. As an account executive, my role primarily focuses on liaising with both clients and the media – securing opportunities when and where possible, writing and proofing copy for a variety of publications, drafting and distributing press releases, selling-in news stories to national and regional press, monitoring coverage and creating evaluation reports, attending client meetings, undertaking research for new business proposals and generating content for social media.

I began working for Stakeholder at the beginning of September and have already had the opportunity to work on a variety of corporate accounts including Belfast Harbour, Titanic Belfast, The Parades Commission and TV Licensing NI. My responsibilities include writing, issuing and selling in press releases and stories to national and regional media, liaising with journalists from a wide spectrum of publications and outlets, organising press interviews, drafting and proofing copy, advising on corporate use of social media to clients, assisting in the drafting of new business tenders, writing and preparing briefing documents regarding upcoming bills and legislation in the Northern Ireland Assembly, supporting with events management, handling media enquiries and assisting senior members of staff in the drafting of PR plans for clients. I also write a monthly fashion column in a local newspaper for Southern Area Hospice.

I was promoted to this role following various stints helping different teams across the Processing and Data Protection departments of the business. The role was client-facing and involved directly liaising with clients such as Department for Education, Cabinet Office and the Department of Work and Pensions and supporting them throughout the digital transformation process. It was the role of my team to ensure any changes they sought to make to the HR solutions and payroll processes SSCL provided to them were doable as well as being cost and time effective. If the client was happy enough to go ahead with a change to one of the processes following our research, we would contact the other departments to initiate such action.

This was an administrative and telephony-based role in which I would provide assistance and advice around Corporate HR policy and payroll to civil servants from across several different government departments including Cabinet Office, Health and Safety Executive, Department of Education and Department for Work and Pensions. Further training lead to the undertaking of more responsibility and thus I became part of the Payment Solutions Team. At this point I was still taking calls from the aforementioned as well as calls from external suppliers who were ringing up for information and advice on the invoices and payments they were due after providing their goods or services to various government departments.

This was an advertising initiative run by Ulster University in aid of Habitat for Humanity. I worked in a team of five; myself and one other from my course and three design students. I undertook the role of Account Director; taking the lead with the team and carrying out the majority of the research which formed the basis of our working brief. I took leadership throughout the process and responsibilites included organising and scheduling meetings and creative sessions, researching the brief and compiling market research, drafting the budget, preparing photoshoots, creating and organising the final presentation to the client as well as devising and putting together the written aspect of the project. I was the go-between for the creative team and the client and it was my job to ensure our creative team got the visuals done in a timely manner that not only lived up to but superseded the client's expectations.