Having joined us from a comms team at another large retailer, Annie has found that her role as External Communications Manager at M&S is much more fast-paced and varied than she ever anticipated. So much so that she has now been with us for four years.
“I think most people say that their jobs are busy and varied, but I’d say my job is definitely really busy and varied. Every day is different,” she says.
Retaining a really strong knowledge of Clothing & Home, Retail and Property is key to Annie’s role, but she also needs to ensure she knows what is going on across the wider business and be able to tell that story externally with her team.
“My job is a combination of deciding what stories we want to put out into the world about what our business is doing, but also responding to what the world wants to ask us. For example, I started the day at a breakfast with our product PR team, talking with various fashion editors about product changes at M&S, but then I also responded to a reactive enquiry asking ‘What does M&S do with clothing that they don’t sell’ - to which we explained our policy of nothing going to landfill.”
With quick timeline changes and the ability to be reactive as well as proactive, being agile is key in the Communications department. And the rewards are great.
“Working in the press team, obviously the most rewarding and exciting part of the job is when you wake up in the morning and you look at the cuts and you see the story that you’ve worked on has landed in the newspaper or online! I think we know that our customers are reading that, we know that our shareholders are reading that, but also knowing that our colleagues are reading that is really exciting aswell.”
