I joined The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) during a period of transition, leading a media team of three. RIBA faced a number of issues and was still recovering from a high profile scandal involving a previous president, so tensions between senior leaders were acute. I designed and helped to deliver a communications strategy that supported key organisational objectives. RIBA priorities included EDI, fire/building safety and sustainability. This project provides good examples of campaign design and delivery, crisis management, EDI and leadership.
RIBA
One of the campaigns I designed and delivered for RIBA helped to improve the safety of residential buildings by influencing policy. Here, when consultation on the new fire safety legislation opened, I wrote a public letter to the former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, which outlined RIBA’s call to action. This called for all 18m and higher builds to include a second staircase, following evidence that post Grenfell, residents prefer to evacuate in the event of a fire. I designed a press pack including the formal letter and identified a date for publication. On the day, I briefed the story into trade and national press, achieving good levels of coverage. The campaign was sucessful with the act taking into account our ‘ask’.