Lucy Moore is an associate director and Head of Tech PR at Refresh.
With over 12 years of experience working across PR agencies, Moore has been with Refresh for over five years and has played an integral role in growing the agency and strengthening its tech specialism.
Crowned as Prolific North’s Tech PR agency of the year in 2021, Moore shares how a recent week in her life at the agency went.
Monday
My working week doesn’t start until tomorrow, as I’m off today enjoying the last day of a long weekend in Lisbon. A friend that I met whilst working at a previous agency lives there now, so we went to surprise him for the weekend for his birthday.
Taking time off to travel and see new places is really important to me – it motivates me and gives me energy, so I always strive for the balance between taking regular breaks and doing a great job, professionally. For me, the two go hand in hand. I land back into Manchester airport at 11pm and quickly pack my bag for the next few days working in London.
Tuesday
I’m on the 9am train to London for a strategy and planning meeting with a b2b building products client. We’ve been working together for just over a year now and today we’re planning for a brand-new campaign to tie in with the business’ new financial year. It’s an exciting time for us as the first year of the partnership was a foundational year, as the business hadn’t really done PR before, but this year we’ll be working on elevation and weaving in new elements to the campaign. We have a genuinely great relationship with the client and are very much on the same wavelength, but they’re also up for being challenged and guided, which is brilliant and allows us to do our best job.
The meeting finishes at 4pm so I work on getting through the days emails and then go for Lebanese food in Paddington before heading back to the hotel for an early night.
Wednesday
I wake up early and have some breakfast and a coffee sat outside in the sun, feeling like I’m back on my holiday. I take this time to scan the news for relevant stories for our clients and then sort out my schedule for the day – I’m heading to London Excel for a trade show and know there are a few speakers I definitely want to see and companies I want to say hi to. I’d struggle to sit behind a desk and be in the same environment for five days a week, so I love getting out to relevant events.
I’m at the show until 5pm and then head to the station and have a pint in Euston Tap (great little pub) and clear my emails while waiting for the first off-peak train back to Manchester (the phrase that I’m sure fills every London-Manchester commuter with horror). On the train I review a couple of planning docs for the team and then try and switch off with a podcast.
Thursday
I’m in the office for the first time in a week! I have a quick catch up with the rest of the team about how their weeks have been and then meet with my MD for an hour for a catch up before she goes on holiday for 10 days – we’re like ships in the night at the moment but always make the effort to have an hour together once a week.
Today’s conversation is focused on team development. We’re growing quickly at the moment and have welcomed a couple of new starters over the past month, but alongside inducting new team members, we’re also careful not to neglect the development of current ones. Our ultimate aim is to foster a high performing team that feels empowered, supported and above all, happy in their role, so having a strategy in place to ensure this is a key priority for us.
I then head out again to check out a tech exhibition in Manchester, go to a couple of seminars there and then meet a cybersecurity client that’s exhibiting there for a late lunch at Rudy’s. We have a good old general natter and then catch up on PR plans for the upcoming months.
Friday
It’s my first full day in the office for more than a week and I’m feeling grateful to have a full seven hours at my laptop! In general, I like the office environment over working from home, so while I’m out and about very often in my role, when I do have a ‘desk day’ I tend to prefer to be in the office. I’ve worked in PR agencies for over a decade now and I genuinely think there’s nothing quite like the buzz of an agency office.
I catch up on a few urgent bits and pieces and then chat to the marketing lead of a business we’re pitching to next week to chat them through our top line thoughts before we build them out. The afternoon is spent writing and then compiling my priorities list for next week, so I can go into the weekend knowing I’m all good to go first thing on Monday morning.
Finally, I catch up with some of the team on how an event that we put on yesterday went. Events are the culmination of weeks of hard work and planning, so I’m glad to hear it went well. And with that, it’s time to head off after another busy and varied week (I won’t ever hear anyone say PR is boring!)
I’ve neglected my yoga practice over the past couple of weeks with being out and about so much, so I’m heading to a yoga workshop this evening to start my weekend as I mean to go on – chilled. It’s all about balance in PR, after all.
