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Job Title

Senior Public Relations Manager - 12 Month Fixed Term Contract

Department

Marketing & Business Development

Office Location

London

Reports To

Senior PR Manager

Working Hours

35 hours per week, 9:30am to 5:30pm but additional hours may be required.  We are happy to consider agile and flexible working patterns.  Our approach to hybrid working allows for up to 40% of time working from home and 60% working in the office, please contact a member of the recruitment team to discuss further.

Firm Description

Hogan Lovells is one of the leading global law firms. Our distinctive market position is founded on our exceptional breadth of our practice, on deep industry knowledge, and on our 'one team' global approach.  Formed through the combination of two top international law firms, Hogan Lovells has over 40 offices in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

With a presence in the world's major financial and commercial markets, we are well placed to provide excellent business-oriented advice to our clients locally and internationally.  Our people are the key to our success, which is why we seek to recruit and retain the most talented individuals in all regions of our global practice.

Department Description

This role sits within the wider Corporate Communications team which comprises public relations, internal communications, brand/design, and digital. The department reports directly into the leadership of the firm via our CCO, Vanessa Montero.

The team work very closely with our well-established global M&BD team, which supports the firm on a wide range of business development, marketing and client relationship management activities. This team is divided into a number of key areas, including practice M&BD, clients and markets covering industry M&BD, pitches and pursuits and campaigns and projects. There are also regional M&BD teams in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific with who this role will interact.

The Public Relations team is responsible for managing the firm’s relationships with media and also has a broader role focused on managing risk and seeking out issues around which we can build reputation. The team is also responsible for managing aspects of Hogan Lovells' internal communications with a particular emphasis on delivery.

Role Overview

This role has overall responsibility for managing PR for the Corporate and Finance practice in the UK, working closely alongside the C&F PR Manager in the US and some support from a PR Adviser and PR agency in the UK.

C&F is the firm's largest practice group accounting for over a third of firmwide revenue. It includes the following practices: M&A, Private Equity and Funds, Capital Markets, Real Estate, Tax and Incentives, Banking, Business Restructuring and Insolvency, and Infrastructure, Energy, Resources & Projects. 

The candidate will also co-lead PR for some of the firm's key industry sectors including Financial Institutions and Insurance (FIIS).

This Senior PR Manager will build relationships with senior management and partners in order to advise and influence how they and their teams should conduct external communications – including developing and managing the PR strategy and identifying and suggesting opportunities for external profile raising.

Although focused on the UK market the candidate will work closely with the firm's global leadership teams [Practice Group leader, Industry Sector Group leaders, Practice Areas leads, Head of Business Development] as well as liaise with business development colleagues across the firm's 40+ offices particularly in London, the U.S., France, Germany and Asia.

They will also work hand in hand with the Internal Comms team, the Content team and the Digital team in order to support the execution of the strategies for your areas.

In addition they will be required to assist on firmwide corporate communications [e.g. financial results, lateral hires and departures, promotions, leadership changes, gender pay gap], CEO communications support, and issues/crisis management.. 

Support will also be needed across the other firm practices including ESG, Pro Bono, DEI etc and to help support communication around our key transformational trends, digitalisation and ESG, with a focus on energy transition.

Key Responsibilities / Accountabilities

Profile raising activity

• Develop, manage and drive the PR strategy for the Corporate and Finance practice, the FIIS sector, key global communications projects and other major global projects and campaigns.

• Build relationships with national and trade press, implement a media contacts programme for individual partners, practices and sectors and help spokespeople build and maintain relationships and prepare them for interviews.

• Identify potential news, topics and comment opportunities.  Responsibility for driving the quantity and quality of media coverage for the London teams.

• Attend leadership team meetings to provide strategy and reporting [on a regular basis] with regards to profile raising for the C&F Practice and the industry sectors you are covering.

• Attend Marketing & Business Development forums and meetings to ensure an integrated approach to BD and PR.

• Draft and distribute press releases, commission articles (and write/edit articles when required).

• Help prepare and recommend submissions for awards entries [drafting is generally not required].

• Act as an ambassador of the firm, and of the communications team, both internally and externally. This may require attending media events/ receptions/ awards.

• Keep a close eye on the needs of the business, potential client conflicts and protect client relationships.

• Develop, contribute to and oversee production of marketing communications materials relevant to PR activities.

• Monitor competitor activity and brief senior management on PR activities of competitors.

• Contribute to half yearly senior management reporting, and ongoing media tracking.

• Help draft media reactive statements for issues/crisis management as and when required. 

• Educate the partnership in media relations best practice and arrange and deliver in-house media relations training [including LinkedIn, social media etc] and networking skills training to lawyers as and when required.

Team/client management

• Provide day-to-day mentoring for more junior members of the London PR team.

Specific duties or responsibilities may be reviewed from time to time to reflect changes in personnel and management structure, staff location or services.

All members of the firm participate in our Responsible Business program.

Person Specification

General Attributes

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• A proven track record in driving strategy, securing opportunities and achieving results.

• Good relationships with national and sector trade press.

• Confident decision-maker.

• A genuine team player – reliable and able to provide support to more junior team members.

• A proactive self-starter, networker and an avid consumer of news.

• An excellent project manager: able to work unsupervised, diligent and dependable.

• Well organised: imaginative, good at analysing problems and implementing solutions.

• A people person: friendly, confident and outgoing.

• Mentally agile: alert and able to hold his/her own with very bright people.

• Diplomatic and comfortable handling sensitive issues.

• Persuasive both in writing and in person.

• Ambitious: able to see projects through to a high standard and with good attention to detail.

• Self-motivated: Enthusiastic, adaptable, works well under pressure.

Experience, Knowledge and Skills

• Effective presentation skills – persuasive in dealings with senior partners.

• A business-to-business background, with good knowledge of business issues.

• Well-established track record in PR or journalism.

• Experience working with complicated topics.

• Experience of PR for M&A / corporate work.

• Experience of working in and for professional services or in financial services environment.

• Knowledge of and contacts within the relevant sector/trade publications.

• International experience.

• Previous line management experience.

Agile Working Statement

Our goal is to embed flexibility across our business by giving everyone the opportunity to work in an agile way, whether as a regular pattern or on an ad hoc basis, and we will be happy to discuss this further.

Equal Opportunities Employment Statement

It is the policy of Hogan Lovells to provide equal opportunities for all employees in relation to recruitment, training and promotion.  Decisions in these areas will be made only by reference to the requirements of the job and shall not be influenced by any consideration of racial or ethnic origin, religion, sex , gender and gender identity, age, sexual orientation, marital and civil partnership status, pregnancy or disability.

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