Our senior team have real-world experience, as business communicators, functional specialists and national journalists. This "coal face" background enables us to identify and successfully present a clear, compelling and brand-enhancing narrative for our clients. Our senior team are award-winners, expert at telling and reporting stories on a national and international level.
I love my job. The satisfaction I get from solving a problem or unlocking a new market opportunity for a client is immense. The work that we carry out for our clients is a blend of careful planning, rigorous analysis and creativity. We apply energy and intelligence to create competitive advantage for our clients’ brands.
Prior to setting up Twelve Thirty Eight I spent my entire career in-house and my colleagues are all former in-house specialists from business or the national media. This gives the Twelve Thirty Eight team a deep understanding of the ways in which businesses, large and small, and the media, tick. It enables us to understand what’s needed to make things happen, who the stakeholders are and how to do things properly and efficiently. It also enables us to provide practical, clear advice to management, based on first-hand experience of international campaigns and intense media scrutiny, and create a brand narrative that will deliver the desired outcome.
Most recently, I was director of Group media relations at DSG international, the pan-European electrical retailing group that owns Dixons, Currys, PC World and several other leading brands, where I was responsible for corporate, financial and consumer media relations across the more than 20 countries in which the group trades. I advised the CEO and executive board directors on all issues related to media relations and reputation and I ran a team that delivered award-winning consumer, social responsibility and corporate campaigns on a pan-European basis.
We are unashamedly generalist in our approach, and therefore able to deliver a message as powerfully and coherently to a city editor as we are to a consumer affairs correspondent or a producer or editor on a national talk show. My colleagues and I take the view that all businesses need a loud, clear and expressive voice and that they ought to be able to articulate their message seamlessly in all relevant parts of the national press, across all broadcast outlets and across all parts of the web.
We were recently awarded the honour of Outstanding Small Consultancy of the Year for our first year of operation in the Chartered Institute of Public Relations PRIDE Awards. We’re very proud of that achievement and we look forward to many years of award-winning work for our clients.
Hamish can be reached on +44 (0) 7702 684290.
Nicola Carslaw has worked in the front line of national and international news for more than 20 years. Following a career in print journalism she moved to broadcast and reported extensively for BBC flagship programmes including Radio 4’s Today programme, the Ten O’clock News and Newsnight, as well as News 24 and Online.
Nicola was the BBC’s first dedicated Consumer Affairs Correspondent, a post she held for almost a decade. During her tenure, she covered a wide range of consumer and CR issues and her reports regularly led the national consumer news agenda.
Prior to this she was one of the first women to hold an international post as foreign correspondent for the BBC. Career highlights included covering the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.
Nicola is a contributing editor for BBC News, specialising in editorial strategy, communications and compliance.
Nicola is a regular speaker at industry conferences and she lectures on risk communication issues for Harvard School of Public Health and the European Food Safety Authority.
Mike has extensive experience of global financial markets gained during a twenty year career with some of the world’s leading investment banks.
At UBS and NatWest he was number one ranked for both the European Oil and Utility sectors in the Extel Survey of Equity Fund managers. Later, as Head of European Equity Research at Schroders Securities he helped build a market leading small and mid cap stockbroker which received awards and plaudits for the high quality of its research. As co-head of European Equity research at Citigroup, he helped build a business that was ranked number one for European Equity Research in the 2003 Institutional Investor Survey. Mike and his co-head were also voted the number one research management team in the Sammons Associate Survey the same year. Mike’s experience of research and equity capital raising spans the spectrum of industry, from large cap to small and from developed to emerging markets. From 1996-2000 he was a board member of Schroders Securities and from 2000-2003 he was a board member of Citigroup Europe’s Corporate and Investment Bank. He graduated from Manchester University with a First Class Degree in Chemistry.
Tracey has more than 20 years’ experience as a newspaper journalist, working as the Daily Mirror’s consumer correspondent and, previously, as a reporter for the Daily Mail.
Since leaving the Daily Mirror she has freelanced extensively for national newspapers on a range of business and consumer issues, written company reports and provided strategic advice to PR agencies.
During her time as consumer correspondent Tracey developed strong relationships with many major British retail companies, placing many exclusive, front-of-the-paper stories about them in the Mirror. She retains great contacts at the nationals and knows what does, and as importantly doesn’t, make a story.
Tracey graduated in history from Bristol University, and then gained a postgraduate diploma in journalism at City University. She is chair of governors at an Essex primary school.
Penelope is responsible for the day to day administration of Twelve Thirty Eight, covering account management, compliance, legal and financial matters and team development. A qualified solicitor, Penelope started her career in private practice for a leading London law firm before moving in house, firstly for a trade union and latterly for an employers’ association. After a period lecturing in law, she spent four years as a freelance journalist and professional writer.
Penelope is also a qualified workplace, commercial and community mediator and is a member of the Board of Mediation Hertfordshire.
Penelope graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English Literature.
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