It’s been a little over six weeks since I started the role of President for CIPR in 2020. When I pledged what I would do in my year I was clear about my focus on volunteers, members and professional conduct and we have kicked off the year with that in mind.

When you become president people often ask you how you’re coping with the demands on your time, or what are the key things you’re doing this year or what do you think are the main trends we need to be aware of this year.

So, I thought I’d take five minutes, on my dedicated CIPR day of the week to answers some of the questions and also give you a bit more of an insight into what I want to do in 2020.

• I’m trying to dedicate one day a week to CIPR. This helps me manage the work I need to do (emails to reply to or papers to read) and focus on CIPR rather than trying to multitask with work and other industry stuff
• I’m doing monthly video updates about things you might have missed and things coming up. These are shared on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram each month so please check them out to keep up to date with what’s happening
• We are hosting our first volunteer conference in March to ‘mobilise the army’. You’ll hear me say this a lot as I look to our volunteers to help us make a difference to the world of PR. It’s important that we recognise their hard work and take time together to work as one
• Professional conduct is at the core of what we do and our privileged roles inside organisations is something I am keen we recognise and respect through taking our professional conduct seriously. This is about professional development, learning and being skilled to deliver what’s needed by our clients and leaders that we serve.
• There are lots of trends we could focus on for 2020 – there are lots of blogs outlining what is important for the year ahead but for me it’s time to focus on technology, the power of fear and fake news. I’m very happy to share more of my thinking around this over the next few months as I have some thoughts bubbling around how this links to professionalism.

I’m honoured and excited about being the President for CIPR in 2020. I believe we can do great things this year, working together, and driving the strategy for CIPR forward.