CEO of the PRCA, Sarah is an experienced management consultant and communicator, social mobility and diversity activist and qualified executive coach.

A thoughtful strategist and the nemesis of group think, Sarah is the UK's only Chartered Director and Chartered PR Practitioner, offering a unique mix of governance and marketing expertise.

She is an IoD ambassador and has over 25 years' experience in helping organisations to articulate their vision and purpose, manage reputation, create value and deliver social impact.

A pioneer of best practice, Sarah was awarded the CIPR’s Sir Stephen Tallents Medal for exceptional achievement in public relations and is a past winner of the PRCA’s Outstanding Contribution in Digital Award. Her CBE was awarded in June 2021 for services to public relations and voluntary sectors.

She is a strong advocate of accountable leadership and women in business and believes in helping young talent break through. 

Sarah is a Past President of the CIPR, a PRCA and IoD Fellow, a member of the Northern Power Women Power List, features on Provoke Media’s Innovator 25 EMEA 2021 list and is a regular speaker at industry events. 

She spearheaded and led the CIPR's gender policy work from 2014 onwards and is the founder and editor of #FuturePRoof, a series of books and community aimed at reasserting the role of public relations as a management function, making thought leadership and best practice accessible to all.

In 2021, Sarah co-founded Socially Mobile with her husband Stephen to improve social mobility and diversity within the PR industry. 

Sarah holds the IoD's Diploma in Company Direction and is a graduate of Oxford Saïd’s Executive Leadership and Cambridge Judge’s Steering Complex Projects programmes. She completed her Non-Executive Director training with NEDA at the London Stock Exchange and holds a certificate in Organisational Leadership from the Institute of Leadership and Management.

Thanks to Jonathan Owen at PRWeek UK for sharing the news that the PRCA and Chartered Institute of Public Relations have jointly written to the National Union of Journalists, The Chartered Institute of Journalists (CIoJ), British Association of Journalists and Press Gazette.

The Press Gazette's excellent Hall of Shame exposé by Rob Waugh showcased extremely poor practice by a small - but unfortunately highly effective - number of SEO agencies. 

The work of these digital agencies in no part represents the strategic, outcome-driven and ethical work carried out by PRCA and CIPR members, none of which are listed. 

Our goal here is to raise awareness of the Codes of Conducts in place across both organisations. These demonstrate the commitment of our members to the highest standards and ethical practice. 

We also have member registers freely available for journalists to check to support their important work and we urge them to use these whenever needed.

Sarah Waddington CBE CDir ChartPR

The PRCA is the industry's voice, ensuring government, policymakers and business leaders recognise PR and public affairs’ vital social and economic impact.

Open article: CIPR and PRCA join forces against fake experts by prweek.co.uk

CIPR and PRCA join forces against fake experts

Well it’s been the longest January in living history, but I’m glad to say that here at the PRCA we’ve been putting all the extra days to good use. Here's an edited round up:
 
✅ We opened a member-only consultation to agree a new definition for PR.
The deadline for contributions is this week so act fast. 
 
✅ We published our AI Green Paper - a huge thank you to our insightful authors and contributors for helping guide best practice.
 
✅ The pilot for our new Business Advisory Service, part of our enhanced member value proposition, is ongoing and this will soon be rolled out to the wider membership. 
 
✅ Our benchmarking survey is underway and now gathers data for our corporate members. Members have each received a personalised link so please complete this as the data will form part of March’s Strategic Advantage report. 
 
✅ We met with the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL) to discuss key priority areas, including standards frameworks and the ongoing development of our Codes.

✅ Our thanks go to the SEC Newgate UK team who hosted the CBI (Confederation of British Industry)’s Government Affairs Network at which we shared our updated Code for Professional Lobbying and plans for engaging with Government, policy makers and business.
 
✅ We received wide backing for our letter to the Minister of State at Department for Culture, Media and Sport in which we asked for the Government to reconsider its continued use of the platform for official communications and called for appropriate enforcement action. It has since pushed through a new offence related to creating sexually explicit deep fakes and thrown its weight behind an Ofcom investigation.
 
✅ When Press Gazette published its PR Hall of Shame, we immediately confirmed that none featured were PRCA members, but unscrupulous SEO agents bringing the industry into disrepute. Yesterday we joined the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in reminding journalism membership organisations and media trade titles to use our membership registers to verify PR credentials where needed.
 
✅ Rob Waugh from Press Gazette and I will be speaking about standards in digital PR at the Digital PR Summit on 22 April in Manchester and PRCA members can get 30% off single tickets using the code ‘PRCA30’.
 
✅ I spoke to In.Comms about the tension between the C-suite and PR professionals. When directors are taught management and leadership, they learn about risk preparedness, stakeholder mapping and engagement, crisis communications and many other skills that sit within the strategic communicator’s wheelhouse, but they’re not necessarily taught that we should deliver these. We’re working hard on your behalf to land the message that this is our role and that management teams should invest in public relations and public affairs because we are business partners integral to organisational success.
 
It's me in the image, sat cross legged in my blue Adidas boilersuit with orange stripes. Let's go!

taplio

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