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As a part of the Morning Lazziness collection highlighting empowering ladies who’re making a exceptional influence with their concepts, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kirsty Leighton.
Kirsty Leighton has three many years of expertise throughout the company model and communications sectors ― holding senior management positions for businesses reminiscent of Hudson Sandler, Text100, and WE Communications. Kirsty’s PR management has now been recognised along with her appointment as Chair of the PRCA.
She is a fierce advocate of the facility of moral PR: alongside making historical past as one half of the primary all-women management staff of the PRCA with Sarah Wadding MBE as CEO, Kirsty is: a B Corp pioneer; a champion of Higher Enterprise; and actively forges partnerships in politics to coach policymakers on the accountable use of PR throughout the democratic course of.
Kirsty is a formidable entrepreneur, founding multi-award-winning Milk & Honey PR in 2017. Individuals first, ethically led and values-driven, the company now encompasses 4 workplaces on three continents ― and is 55% owned by the individuals who work there. All the time studying, Kirsty has additionally taken half in Goldman Sachs’ invitation-only ‘10,000 Small Companies’ and elite ‘Unicorn Faculty’ enterprise accelerators.
On this interview, she reveals the mindset shifts, daring strikes, and classes that helped her flip concepts into impactful on-line companies.
What’s the origin story behind what you are promoting, and the way does it replicate who you might be past the entrepreneur title?
Milk & Honey PR grows from a easy thought. Since 2017 we’ve been constructing a office the place individuals come first, so they really get pleasure from their work and have the time, area, coaching and alternatives to develop professionally and personally. The place range is and can all the time be seen as power, and everybody belongs. The place higher enterprise goal and obligations to our planet encourage us to go additional for our purchasers and our individuals.
It’s an strategy that has created an company with a imaginative and prescient to nurture the reputations of purposeful manufacturers ― to have interaction, affect and encourage. We create the tales that transfer individuals and alter the world.
Our values inform our enterprise, reasonably than a enterprise that dictates values ― encompassing vitality, bravery, respect, ardour, collaboration and loyalty.
Imaginative and prescient and values information us in our mission ― to be our purchasers’ trusted communications consultants; to champion their distinction; to seek out and have interaction audiences; to amplify their voice; and to repeatedly improve their worth.
Your work blends goal with enterprise — what’s the “why” that also will get you off the bed on robust days?
The world faces so many challenges – local weather disaster, social justice, a post-truth communications setting, and equality, to call simply 4. I imagine that PR has the facility – and accountability – to make enterprise a part of the answer.
Greater than another business, we have now the facility to floor necessary points which can be buried (accidentally or design). If we have a look at local weather change for example, it’s the PR business that has completed a lot to share understanding of its causes and the actions we have to take. Greta Thunberg, for instance, was an unknown and lonely protester in 2018 – till a passing PR professional helped to catapult her onto the worldwide stage. At the moment, she’s a worldwide environmental icon who goes toe-to-toe with prime ministers and presidents.
What will get me off the bed within the morning? It’s the potential for PR to vary the world for the higher.
Many manufacturers provide comparable companies, however few seize hearts — what’s your secret to constructing deep emotional resonance along with your viewers?
Fairly merely, authenticity. You’ll be able to’t pretend ardour or dedication or motion. We imagine in what we do, and our audiences do too.
What’s been your only advertising technique, and may you stroll us via the inventive considering or risk-taking behind it?
When it comes to campaigns, there are such a lot of – however I feel the work we did for a worldwide expertise firm stands out. Tasked with showcasing their in depth however little-known work on constructing a really sustainable organisation, we created a worldwide environmental index. Our inventive turned the idea on its head ― seeing the actions and attitudes of on a regular basis individuals as the true key to unlocking constructive local weather motion, reasonably than the approaches of governments and companies.
It grew in scale and scope over three years, capturing the views of properly over 30,000 individuals in 39 international markets. Our evaluation of survey information once more showcased creativity, figuring out fascinating tendencies and segments to check and distinction attitudes. Artistic supplies, together with accessible and highly effective infographics and video, minimize via the noise at UN COPs to safe top-tier protection.
How do you hearken to your neighborhood — not simply in surveys or analytics — however in ways in which assist you anticipate their unstated wants?
My colleagues will let you know that one among my favorite phrases is, “we have now two ears and one mouth – so we should always hear twice as a lot as we discuss.”
When it comes to purchasers, we use a spread of formal listening instruments, together with NPS scores – the place ‘excellence’ is our baseline. We have interaction quarterly to make it possible for we’re assembly and exceeding expectations – and may determine points shortly.
We take an identical strategy with our individuals, with quarterly surveys – generally known as ‘Hive Happiness’. Responses are nameless to a spread of questions that embrace every thing from inner comms, belief in Milk & Honey and supervisor relationships, to coaching, psychological well being and wellbeing. Outcomes are mentioned at board stage – with motion taken the place outcomes present we are able to do higher.
Surveys, nonetheless, are just one aspect of the equation. We prize the worth of in-person communication – making the time to speak to and be taught from our purchasers and groups.
We additionally have interaction with our native and international communities – working via our professional bono Objective Academy to work with charities to upskill their PR capabilities and, in flip, be taught from them of the challenges they face and the way PR can higher assist their life-changing missions.
Which marketing campaign, collaboration, or strategic shift felt like a real turning level in your model’s public picture?
Changing into a member of the B Corp neighborhood actually helped everybody at Milk & Honey to discover a framework round which we might construct our higher goal. We turned one of many first communications businesses in Europe to certify and have gone on to be named a B Corp ‘Finest for the World’ firm, in addition to reaching one of many highest B Corp scores of any company on this planet (we’re about to recertify with over 185 factors).
The worth of B Corp is that it’s not a tick field train – it’s a continuing journey to show (with exhausting information) how we at present carry out and the way we are going to all the time work to be higher.
In your individual phrases, how do you measure success past revenue, when it comes to legacy, affect, or cultural influence?
We’re right here to depart the world in a greater state than we discovered it. B Corp helps us – as we publish our annual Individuals, Objective, Planet report which is a warts and all evaluation of our purposeful influence.
We’re additionally completely different from different corporations in that happiness is one among our KPIs. I’ve already talked about our Hive Happiness survey however we again this up with in depth particular person skilled and private improvement plans, our modern 40+1 go away entitlement, month’s paid sabbatical after 5 years of service, beneficiant maternity and paternity provision and a lot extra.
I would like our individuals to like their time at Milk & Honey and take the values of vitality, ardour, respect, collaboration, bravery and loyalty with them as they forge careers throughout the business.
How do you take care of failure?
Failure is important to success. The trick is to fail ahead – to know and be taught out of your errors and always apply these classes as you progress ahead. I began this enterprise by myself from a kitchen in a London home and failing ahead has helped me to construct it into the worldwide, multi-award-winning company it’s as we speak.
We don’t dwell on our failures – however we always remember and all the time be taught from them.
What’s a day by day or weekly ritual that retains you grounded and in contact along with your model’s mission, even when enterprise will get chaotic?
I draw power from the individuals round me, so our Monday morning staff conferences deliver me pure vitality. With a extremely versatile working provide – with hybrid and distant employees – this is among the foremost methods I get to see everybody’s faces and perceive what they’re doing, hear their challenges and revel of their intelligence and fervour in what they do for one another and our purchasers.
How do you strategy innovation in a approach that makes your model each trend-aware and timeless?
Innovation drives us – however all the time responsibly. Our ‘NU’ AI and Rising Expertise Division, for instance, was born from staff curiosity again in 2021 (pre ChatGPT) concerning the potential financial, industrial and social impacts of technological change. It led to an AI Working Group which in flip led to the creation of NU and one of many first Moral AI Playbooks in PR.
Since then, NU has grown to co-develop new AI applied sciences and assist purchasers as they transition to a brand new approach of working. But, every thing we do is knowledgeable by our timeless values, so our applied sciences and counsel embed human oversight and robust moral guardrails. It has taken us, for instance, to a spot the place we’re now exploring how AI can break down boundaries to job entry and alternative for neurodiverse individuals.
For those who might cross down just one piece of knowledge to the subsequent technology of entrepreneurs, what wouldn’t it be and why?
I’m going to have to offer two items of recommendation: firstly, construct what you are promoting round significant values – they need to and should inform each resolution you make; secondly (and that is linked to the primary), take individuals with you. You’ll be able to’t do that alone, so share your ardour, reside your values, and folks will take your imaginative and prescient, improve it, make it their very own – and make it infinitely higher.
Successful recognition in your business is not any small feat — what behind-the-scenes resolution or transfer do you imagine made that doable?
Milk & Honey has been recognised in additional than 200 awards in eight years. It makes me extremely proud. On the danger of sounding like a scratched file, success has come from residing our values and being genuine. Individuals recognise it once they see it – and it’s priceless.
How have public recognition, awards, or media options shifted alternatives in your model in surprising methods?
The straightforward and brief reply to that query is our portfolio listing and inner expertise.
We have now been honoured to work with a few of the most modern and goal targeted organisations on this planet that work to deliver constructive change – from genomic information platforms which can be reworking international healthcare, to water innovators bringing hydration to tens of millions, to moral chocolate producers defending farmers and the land they work. They arrive to us as a result of they recognise a ‘fellow traveller’.
Additional, I’ve been honoured to work with a few of the most gifted, dedicated, clever and sort colleagues within the PR business and past – who’ve all come to Milk & Honey as a result of they see this as a spot the place their abilities could make a constructive distinction to individuals and the planet.
If somebody hears your identify or sees your work simply as soon as, what’s the one message or feeling you hope they go away with?
We associate with companies that construct a greater world to allow them to be seen, be heard, and be good.
The place’s the most effective place for our viewers to comply with your journey and discover your work?
Clearly, via our website, the place individuals can hold updated with the good work we’re doing and have a look at our newest Individuals, Objective, Planet report, to comply with us on LinkedIn and Instagram for breaking information because it occurs.
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