Twitter handle

@russellcomms
@PippaRComms

The main areas of the financial services market that I cover are:

Fintech, wealth management, platforms, ETFs, investment consultancy and institutional.

I was prompted into working on the press/communications side of the business by:

When I left university having completed my History degree, I was not sure what I wanted to do. I became a financial adviser and quickly discovered it was the marketing and communication aspects of the job that I enjoyed the most.  It was actually my old boss at Barclays who inspired me to pursue my passion. I made the career change into Public Relations by joining Lansons, and never looked back! Tony Langham and Claire Parsons were truly inspirational and gave me a great grounding in not only the practical side of PR but also the theoretical and strategic side of our business.

The biggest influence on my career to date?

This is hard to distil into one as there have been so many!  The original team at Selestia (many of whom I went to work with Novia) all had incredible energy, vision and drive.  As the new kids on the platform block we had to be resourceful and imaginative to get our message out there.  

More recently and I am not sure if I would describe it as an “influence” necessarily, but certainly a career high, was Russell Communications winning the ETF Express 'Best PR firm for ETFs in Europe'.  I think that recognition of the hard work and passion required in setting up the business, was a huge confidence boost.

What has been the biggest challenge in setting up your own business?

I launched Russell Communications a year ago this month and it has been an absolutely fantastic 12 months!  

Having worked in financial services PR for nearly 30 years I was ready to make the change and run my own business.  Over the past year I have taken on two new people, won a number of new clients and the business scooped an award for 'Best European PR Agency for ETFs'!  This next year I am hoping to further grow the business in terms of people and clients as well as branching out into doing more content creation.

In terms of the biggest challenge I would say it has been managing all the additional admin that comes with running a company, I absolutely love client work, and that is my passion but managing all the other bits that come along side it can be time consuming.

The financial services term or item of jargon that most confuses journalists in my sector is:

Using the broad term ESG is difficult as it means so many different things to different people.  We all have our own priorities, beliefs and passions; finding a common ground when it comes to expressing these in the world of financial services can be tricky.

As technology continues to evolve, I believe the “hyper personalisation” that we see in other industries will cross over into financial services. This will enable a more accurate representation of E, S and G when it comes to investing in the future.

The finance-related headline I would most like to see is:

“Financial Services tops diversity league tables.”

The column/feature in the financial services media which I always read is:

Specialising in the B2B sector I read the trades every day.  I also enjoy the LangCat Wednesday Update email each week although I rarely agree on the music choice!

I would describe my relationship with financial journalists as:

A great partnership.

If I weren’t in my current job, I would probably be a:

Dog hotel owner.

I would sum myself up in five words as:

Energetic, imaginative, passionate, curious and kind.

Given £1,000 I’d invest in cash/gold/shares/property/cryptocurrencies/other:

My business.

The key to being good at financial media relations is:

Being a good listener, understanding what clients want and what journalists need.

You won’t know this, but I’m really good at:

Playing the drums.

You won’t know this, but I’m hopeless at:

Cooking rice.

And finally… what’s your go-to karaoke song?

Anything by Taylor Swift.