With nearly 20 years of experience in PR and communications, Kat Wallace has a proven track record of delivering high-impact campaigns across consumer and corporate sectors.
Her agency experience includes several years at a London-based PR consultancy, specialising in construction, property and regeneration.
As Director at BIG Partnership, Wallace now leads the integrated marketing and communications agency’s PR and PA teams, managing a diverse portfolio of clients while keeping a hands-on approach to campaign strategy, development and execution.
As a trusted adviser, she also provides counsel at executive and board level, ensuring teams are aligned, empowered and equipped to deliver campaigns that support wider business objectives.
Here, she takes us along for a behind the scenes glimpse into a recent week in her life…
Monday
The week starts with a run. There’s something about getting it done early that makes everything else feel more manageable and by the time I’m on my second coffee I’ve usually mapped out where my time should go. Monday mornings are for decisions as much as work: who do I need to see this week, which clients need attention, and just as importantly, what do I not need to be involved in? I close down Teams and Outlook and get into the bigger stuff. Pitches, strategy documents, anything that’s rolled over from the previous week tends to look different on a Monday with fresh eyes. I like reading across the agency too, picking up case studies and ideas from other parts of the business. Before I finish up, I do a quick sweep of what’s come in. We do a lot of reactive PR, so you learn quickly never to assume the day has ended when you think it has.
Tuesday
I head to the office first thing on a Tuesday and will scan for the main news stories of the day – I’ll look across all platforms. I’ll send clients things I think are worth their time, a story, a stat, something relevant to what they’re working on. It sounds small but it’s one of the things clients tend to mention. A big part of the day is thinking about who in the agency should know who. Whether that’s looping in our head of public affairs on a conversation that needs it or introducing a client to a colleague with a fresh idea, those introductions often lead somewhere good. We have a genuinely varied client base and they make strong connections with each other too. We bring people together over dinner with a speaker or a panel – politicians work well but we have also used economists and other interesting personalities. Getting a room of interesting people talking, usually over a glass of wine, is one of the better parts of this job.
Wednesday
Wednesday is reliably the busiest day of the week. I’m usually out for most of it: client meetings, strategy sessions, a coffee with someone in my network who wants to chat something through or just have a natter. Glasgow has a good events scene for this kind of thing. The Social Hub tends to have something on, and the Chamber of Commerce consistently puts together a strong room. Once a month, we have pizza Friday for the office, so I try not to miss that. The variety is the point. One meeting is a proper strategic review looking at a client’s business priorities for the year ahead and how we are aligning with these. It could be discussing a PR plan for a whisky client or a stakeholder engagement strategy for a housebuilder. The next meeting might be a more informal conversation that ends up being just as useful. You rarely know in advance which will be which. I try to finish Wednesdays with a pilates class. Then it’s straight into the pickup run for my two little girls, which is a very different kind of energy!
Thursday
I try to get to our Manchester office as often as I can. There’s no substitute for actually being in the room with people, and the team there is growing. We’re seeing real demand for joined-up services across PR, public affairs and marketing, and the ambitions for that office reflect that. The conversations I have there tend to be a mix of client work, pipeline, and thinking about how we build on what’s already working. It’s one of those days that feels genuinely productive in a way that’s hard to replicate on a call. I often try to get there and back in a day which means a 5am start and 9pm finish. The upside is time to get through work on the train. The signal isn’t good enough for calls but you can still get a lot done.
Friday
Fridays tend to look inward. Forecasting, finance, capacity planning across the PR team. Sometimes it’s a review of our own marketing. Sometimes it’s interviewing for the team. Sometimes it’s a catch-up with the culture team on what’s in the pipeline socially, the summer event, Christmas, whatever’s next. And then, reliably, something urgent arrives at 4pm. A crisis, a reactive brief, a journalist with a tight deadline. I’ve stopped being surprised by it. There’s a reason Friday afternoons keep communications people honest.
