Update: the deadline for entering has been extended to Friday 3 December
The scheme, which returns for a third year after a hiatus during the height of the COVID-19 crisis, aims to encourage and nurture creative talent in the PR industry.
Successful applicants will be matched with one of our contingent of mentors – all experienced PR executive creative directors and creative directors – who will offer guidance through virtual and/or face-to-face meetings, on at least a quarterly basis.
The offer is open to UK-based PR professionals, agency-side or in-house, with a minimum of three years' experience who see themselves as a creative director in the future, or otherwise want to improve their earned-media creative abilities.
The application process opens today. Mentor/mentee pairings will be confirmed before Christmas, with year-long mentoring set to begin in the first quarter of 2022.
To enter, please click here to email and provide the following information:
- Your name, job title, and the organisation you work for.
- The creative campaign that you are most proud of and why (maximum 150 words).
- The creative campaign from the past three years that you wish you had devised, and why (maximum 100 words).
Please include your own name as the subject line.
Nick Woods, creative partner and founder of Sunny Side Up, who is co-lead on the Creative Mentoring Project, said: “Learn from your own personal, multi-award-winning creative director – it’s that simple. Whether you’re agency-side and want to become a full-time CD or ‘just’ to improve your creative abilities, or are client-side and want to be better able to read, understand and critique creative, we’ll pair you up with someone who knows what they’re doing. Individual, one-to-one, off-the-record mentoring to make you better at what you do. These men and women are genuinely the best of the best.”
Fellow co-lead Jo Chappel, divisional creative director (Fever, Nelson Bostock & Health Unlimited), said: “Creativity, in all its different expressions, has never been more important right now; whatever your current job, sector or experience. You might be trying to navigate your way into a specialist creative role or simply be curious to learn more about where the great campaigns you see in PRWeek come from and how they come about. Either way, this is the kind of opportunity I wish I’d had many years ago when I started to explore what a different career in PR could look like. Honest, impartial advice from a hugely talented and lovely bunch of people who are looking to learn something from you too.
"Over the past few years, we’ve made good headway in bringing in a more diverse mix of creatives into the industry but there’s still plenty of work to do. Sign up and be part of moving this forward."
PRWeek UK editor John Harrington said: "We're living in a golden age of earned-media creativity, with the industry investing more than ever in creative talent as client demand surges. The Creative Mentoring Project will encourage the next generation of creative leaders to excel – don't miss the opportunity to learn from the best.
"With lack of diversity a big impediment to creativity, we're particularly keen to receive applications from women and BME comms professionals."
Former mentee Rachel O'Malley, now a senior creative at FleishmanHillard UK, is among the mentors this year.
She said: "I entered the mentoring scheme in 2019 when I had all the ambition to become a full-time creative, but very little of the practical know-how to navigate the transition across from account management. While my agency was very supportive, having a mentor who wasn’t associated with my day-to-day work to sense check with, bounce ideas off and glean insights from was invaluable. Fast-forward two years and I’m now a full-time concept creative in a global creative team."
Mentors confirmed for 2022
- Kim Allain (MSL)
- Jo Chappel (Unlimited)
- Sam Corry (Taylor Herring)
- Janelle Feliciano (The Romans)
- Sarah Firth (Speed)
- Andy Garner (Grayling)
- Dan Glover (The Academy)
- Emily Gosen (Ketchum)
- Will Holloway (Fever)
- Lotte Jones (Freuds)
- Gavin Lewis (One Green Bean)
- Joe Mackay Sinclair (The Romans)
- Louisa May Cooper (Edelman)
- Pete Mountstevens (Taylor Herring)
- Rachel O'Malley (FleishmanHillard)
- Ruby Quince (Hill+Knowlton Strategies)
- Alice Roe (Grayling)
- Tom Rouse (Don't Cry Wolf)
- Lee Sanders (Frank)
- Pam Scobie (John Doe Group)
- Indy Selvarajah (Ketchum)
- James Shirley (Tin Man)
- Andrew Soar (Ogilvy PR)
- Ellie Tuck (FleishmanHillard)
- Henry Warrington (Third City)
- Pete Way (BCW)
- Nick Woods (Sunny Side Up)
- Stuart Yeardsley (3 Monkeys Zeno)
