Michelle is a brand and communications strategist with 22 years’ experience in numerous blue chip companies including E.ON and Severn Trent. Charming, tenacious and persistent, Mich delivers projects with unrivalled efficiency for clients including the National Grid, Shelter, Food Standards Agency and British Red Cross.
Career Experience:
- With a degree in Psychology, Michelle began working in market research using her skills to identity what drives and motivates customers and colleagues.
- Over the course of her career she’s gained experience across a wide range of challenges which means she thinks about every angle and sees the bigger picture.
- Her specialties include B2B and B2C market research, Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer experience and employee engagement.
Highlights:
- Working in Internal Communications at E.ON and Severn Trent managing many high-profile UK wide cultural change and transformation programmes, including emotive pension changes, improving customer experience and supporting disengaged customer service colleagues through difficult restructures and multi-million-pound training programmes.
- Developing strategic plans to rebrand Powergen to E. ON, using a £32m sponsorship deal as a communication platform and increasing brand awareness from 3% to 65% to create the second best known energy brand in the UK.
What the “Social Life” means for Mich:
“I coined the phrase ‘work life smoothie’ because I believe that’s the reality of being a working parent and it explains my life on a day to day basis. Although, many jobs don’t support the ‘work life smoothie’, Social & Local actively encourage and applaud it.
My day is a blend of work, training for half or full marathons and being around to drop off and pick my daughter from school. I don’t have to book time off for the Christmas nativity or dentist, I just carve out time in my day and make it up before or after – simples. And because we work in a virtual office (we can see each other on Skype through the day) I don’t spend a lot precious time commuting. I can just get on with the job, be there for our clients and feel good about what we do.
Without this human approach and trust, life would be a lot more difficult for me and I seriously doubt if I could work as much as I do or be as healthy. Because I can blend my running into the day, I’m fitter now than in my twenties and it keeps me mentally sharp too. It’s taught me to be creative and flexible about how I work, as it’s not black and white – it’s a smoothie! SoLo have the right, refreshing, human approach.”