Pro Hello: Kerry Parkin
With three decades of experience working with global businesses facing complex challenges, Kerry delivers meaningful communications strategies to ensure the highest results for her clients. Creativity lies at the heart of everything she does, from approach to execution. For Kerry, diversity is key, having worked with some of the biggest global brands, including Microsoft, Virgin, Pernod Ricard and HMD, while also creating results for the emerging leaders of the future.
Today, Kerry opens up on her journey so far.
LBB> What do you do, and where are you based?
Kerry> Originally from the North of England. I’m based in the UK, but my business, Sway, is global. I work with communications associates from around the world to deliver results and create real impact for brands and businesses, whatever their need is. Whether that’s raising capital, creative PR ideation or engaging colleagues to develop a happier culture, I create impact through communications. Ultimately, my mission is to share my extensive communications and PR knowledge with my clients to improve their business.
LBB> What recent campaigns might we know you from, and what was your input on these campaigns?
Kerry> Sway is in its infancy, having only just launched this year, so we’ve got a lot of incredible things coming up that I can’t talk about yet! The campaigns you would know me from include reintroducing the Nokia 3310 to the world, which broke Twitter and out-trended the Oscars. You would also know me for the Andre Agassi Australian Open campaign for Jacobs Creek, and for inventing the term ‘dialling under the influence’.
LBB> How did you first get into the industry, and how did you realise what you wanted to do?
Kerry> In 1998, I was president of the Student Union and I went to the careers fair. The advisers pulled out a manual which cross referenced everything you like to do, like writing, meeting people, relationships and event management. They put it together in their little matrix, and it spat out public relations. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded good, so I got work experience with Weber Shandwick, which was one of the biggest agencies of the time. I really enjoyed it and was offered their graduate internship. So, in terms of a career, I never really had the chance to look at anything else.
I was told PR was pitching to media, and at the time, that's what PR was. But it's not anymore. Today, it’s about shaping a perception of a brand or a business for all of its stakeholders.
LBB> Tell us about your journey so far.
Kerry> After starting out in agency, I made my first move to Virgin, where I learned the art of PR from Richard Branson, one of the best PR people you could ever meet. Working within Virgin so early on in my career meant that I learned to relentlessly focus on the customer and colleague. It was clear that you don't have a business without your people, and if you don't think about the customer every second of every day, then you're not going to have anyone to sell to. After three years, I moved to Virgin Mobile Australia, and then to Microsoft Australia. The next step was going back into agency with Hill and Knowlton. I think that the best practitioners have a good mix of agency and in-house experience, because the agency experience makes you really service orientated and time efficient.
After having my first child, I spent four years in-house at Pernod Ricard, leading their global wine PR and comms across the Americas, Europe and APAC, so that’s when I started my global comms journey. Returning to the UK, I joined Costa at a transformational period where it was just hitting scale, being part of Whitbread and a FTSE100. I joined HMD in 2016 with the aim of returning Nokia to its former glory. It was unlike anything I’d ever done before. We relaunched the brand in six weeks with six products, and then debuted at MWC with the Nokia 3310. We had around 25,000 media clips the first day. Our 200-capacity keynote jammed in 600 people. Every media outlet in Barcelona was in our room. It was crazy. We did hundreds of interviews that week. People couldn’t get enough of the brand -- and the Nokia 3310.
I then had a brief stint back in agency, and soon joined Allwyn as global communications director. It was a fascinating time as the National Lottery transitioned from Camelot to a new operator for the first time in its history.
In summary, I have had a brilliant career arc – consumer PR, internal communications, crisis and issues, agency leader, global management, investor relations, government, brand and marketing, start-up and regulatory. It means I’ve developed a very robust and holistic view of communications, and how all these stakeholders interlink. Now, as I enter my 25th year in communications, I’ve opened my own agency, Sway.
LBB> What projects / campaigns that you’ve been involved in have been the most personally satisfying to work on, and why?
Kerry> Having lost a close family member to suicide in 2021, I started working with Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SOBS) in 2022. I took the charity through a brand refresh, moving it from a ‘village hall’ setup into a more nationally recognisable symbol of hope. I also completed the market research into suicide bereavement in the UK, which showed that 10 million Brits live with the impact of suicide, which we'd never known before. Last year, we launched a campaign which unveiled a new tattoo to commemorate the people who have been lost to suicide. Sharing my extensive skills with the charity has been hugely rewarding.
LBB> What’s been your proudest achievement?
Kerry> My children and my marriage. My husband and I have been together almost 30 years, and none of this happens without him.
LBB> What do people (clients, agencies etc) come to you for specifically?
Kerry> Clients come to me for a calm hand. A lot of the work I do is either fast-paced or happening during a turbulent time for their business, so they need someone calm and measured. Also, I have a non-traditional approach to comms and come at it from a very different point of view. I will always look at every project and ask how it makes the world better.
LBB> What are your strongest opinions relating to your specific field? (Think, what’s the one debate or issue that’s guaranteed to get you passionate or on a rant?)
Kerry> The thing that gets me on a rant is the concept that freelance talent is somehow less valuable than permanent talent, which simply isn’t true. Sway is built on working with amazing associates from all over the world who have chosen a different lifestyle. I've never seen the freelance talent pool more alive than right now. The reality is you can attract some amazing experts by offering interesting work at a pace and place they really want to work. Sway is built completely on freelance associate talent and that makes us better served for clients. I build a bespoke team of crack experts for every single campaign, meaning our clients always get the best.
LBB> What sort of projects really get you excited at the moment?
Kerry> I'm really enjoying helping clients explore the more emotional, more valuable, more meaningful presence in customers and consumers lives. It's been lovely to see businesses and brands respond to that idea that you can make a difference and know that while you could spend a million dollars on a campaign, you could also spend that money trying to fix something broken in the world. More brands are opting for the latter and I really enjoy seeing that work coming to market.
LBB> Who are your creative heroes, and why?
Kerry> My eldest daughter who is 16 is my creative hero. She has ADHD and ASD, and if I could bottle the magic that happens in her head, I'd be a very rich woman. She can create stories and weave narratives and ideas in a really incredible way. And her sense of social injustice and how she applies that to life is just amazing to witness.
LBB> Outside of the day job, what fuels your creativity?
Kerry> I talk to people with zero agenda. I catch up with people who are either looking for work, stuck, or working on something new. While it’s very unlikely that conversation will result in work for me, I go to share ideas and just discover new things. Those conversations are what make me explode with ideas.
