Susan Walkley, our resident PR guru, answers our quick fire questions

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Usually it is our dog trying to lick my face. There is nothing like the imminent threat of dog-breath to get you moving in the morning.

What’s the best thing about healthcare comms?

The sense of purpose and having a cause. My mother died when I was 14 because she had an itchy mole on her ear and didn’t get it checked out early enough. 10 years later I found myself working on an award-winning, sun-safe PR campaign and realised that health education could have a real impact on someone’s life.

What is the future of healthcare communications?

In our cost-conscious, tech-propelled world, the lines between paid, owned and earned channels have blurred. By bringing together the principles of behavioural science with the connectivity of digital, social and PR in one unified approach, we can truly immerse people in a story via the channels they read, watch, listen to, click or swipe.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

You can’t always get it right first time and mistakes are a great learning curve. A great team is made up of people who can forgive each other, are generous in the way they share their experiences and are smart enough not to make the same mistake twice!

What makes a great campaign?

I watch a lot of Netflix! It’s not hard to see how powerful and persuasive stories, when they are artfully crafted, can get people talking or create a movement that empowers action. I believe in using the principles of storytelling to craft great communications for our clients.

Susan is Managing Partner at Havas Life Medicom, heading up the PR and Creative Comms division. In her spare time, Susan is writing a book called “How to be a bad parent and still raise perfect children” and if she’d realised earlier how great dogs were she might have thought twice about having kids. Not really.