PRCA relaunches Business Development Group
The Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) has relaunched its Business Development (BD) Group, with 3 Monkeys Zeno’s Rebecca Wagstaffe and Richmond & Towers’ Anouska Leon to co-chair the Group.
The BD Group, in partnership with Ingenuity, will provide a combination of opinion, best practice materials, and insights to aid PRCA members in their business development activities. The BD group will host its inaugural event with Ingenuity, on the 7th of December, exploring how business development has evolved over the last 18 months and what agencies now need to do to ensure their channel strategy is match-fit for winning new business. Book here for the free event.
New co-chair Rebecca brings an innate ability to spot a brilliant campaign at a hundred paces and specialises in encouraging teams to be bolder, more ambitious, and look behind the brief. As the Head of Business Development & Marketing at 3 Monkeys Zeno, Rebecca helps its European offices articulate their vision and convey what makes them unique to the wider world.
Fellow co-chair Anouska started her career in the cut-throat environment of corporate sales learning how to do business, the hard way. After nearly a decade, she made the move into the creative world via a start-up new business consultancy, taking with her an armoury of robust sales techniques. There her role, alongside client new business, was creating and delivering new business training for in-house new business people, bridging the gap between the corporate and creative. Anouska’s first in-house agency business development role was at Threepipe Reply before making the move to Richmond & Towers in 2014.
Rebecca Wagstaffe, Head of Business Development & Marketing Europe, 3 Monkeys Zeno: “When it comes to agency growth, business development has always acted as the thread that ties together a company's functions or departments. Coming out of the pandemic, our role as experts needs to be more sharp-focused than ever and I am very excited to co-chair this group, helping hone skills and best practice to develop the brightest minds in business development across our industry.”
Anouska Leon, Business Development Director Richmond & Towers: “Agency growth is always a top priority, but the last two years have shone a spotlight on Business Development like never before, proving once again that it is the lifeblood of agencies. During uncertain times, the going gets tough for BD professionals and the last 18 months threw a few curveballs our way with everything on Zoom, clients and prospects working from home and navigating the sensitivities of ‘selling’ during a global pandemic.
Chris Kemp, CEO & Founder, Ingenuity: “The inevitable consequence is ever more stringent procurement processes, budgets that need to ‘work harder’ and a focus on delivering tangible ROI. I’m thrilled to have been invited to take up the position of co-chair of the PRCA Business Development Group during such an exciting period of change.”
As part of Ingenuity’s ongoing relationship with the PRCA, we’re thrilled to be working closely with the leading PR and Communications trade association to help their agency members understand the true potential of new business and B2B sales & marketing. We’ll be exploring the themes that are consistently of relevance to business development professionals, and to their agency’s growth potential.
Having worked with hundreds of leading agencies in our 16 years, and running 160+ pitches annually, we’ll be collating insights from both sides of the fence to deliver workshops around best-in-class agency shop windows, what brands are truly looking for in their partners, how to win pitches virtually and the evolution of effective channel strategies. This also coincides with a new chapter for our Events, of which PR, Social and Content will continue to be a focus next year.”
