Louise Simpson MA, MIPR

Business Overview
David Roberts BA, MSS, MIPR
Dr Stephen Holmes PhD
Client list and Associates
Knowledge Partnership Associates

Base: Cambridge, UK
Expertise: communications strategies, stakeholder relationships, national media relations, reputation management, style and visual presentation
CV: Senior Communications expert, Former Director of Communications, University of Cambridge, head of press and publications office, and senior commissioning editor for multinational publisher
Education: BA English Literature, Girton College Cambridge University, MA Cambridge
Professional affiliations: Member of the Institute of Public Relations. Trainer for CASE and HEERA. Media trainer for HE senior management
Publications and presentations: Celebrations and Centenaries, Crisis Communications, Devising an External Relations Strategy

"As an in-house director of communications, I have often experienced the difficulty of finding consultants who really understood the structures and governance of my own project surroundings. I wanted to set up The Knowledge Partnership to deliver quality communications, marketing and strategic support that both challenged and provoked, but also responded to in-house cultures with creativity and sensitivity.

I grew up in the Midlands and read English Literature at Cambridge University. I began my career in the world of publishing in London. Working up from editorial assistant to senior commissioning editor, I learnt the book trade in two independent publishing houses, Batsford and Pavilion, before finally moving to Conran Octopus, a design-led small publishing arm of the multinational Reid Elsevier empire. There I learnt not only how to describe a 30,000 word book in a 50 word jacket 'blurb' but also the key skills of marketing, graphic design and editing. I worked with design gurus Terence Conran, Monty Don, and some of the giants of the retail world - Marks and Spencer, IKEA, Crabtree and Evelyn and Sainsbury on books that distilled their visual identity.

In 1995 I moved back to Cambridge with my husband, he to work for one of the new high technology companies in Silicon Fen and I to support Cambridge University's newly created press office. There I honed the skills associated with any good press officer, but in an environment that was completely under the eye of the national press. Cambridge gets more press calls than most FTSE 100 companies, and its national and international press coverage is phenomenal. Moreover, its intensely political structures, with over 170 departments, and 31 individual colleges, meant that the role taught me to work with numerous clients and constituencies rather than the single business entity I had experienced in publishing.

In 2001 I became Director of Communications, working on Cambridge University's first external relations strategy with co-Director Susie Baker.

In my time at Cambridge, I have worked for three successive Vice-Chancellors, advising them on their press agendas and public affairs, with events ranging from press conferences in the House of Commons to Today Programme appearances to visits from the President of China. Most recently I have managed the high profile external relations strategy for the new Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard, former Provost of Yale, which achieved intensive and successful world-wide press coverage. The job demanded a keen political awareness and mainstream editorial skills - I drafted speeches, as well as opinion pieces and letters of reply for the UK national papers including The Times, THES, The Guardian, and the Observer. I have also written articles under my own name for CAM alumni magazine, Education Marketing and the Cambridge Society and numerous in-house annual reports and publications.

Under my management, the Press and Publications Office won numerous awards. In my final year with Cambridge, the office was honoured with three prestigious gold IPR awards for best internal strategy for the installation of the Vice-Chancellor, best inhouse team, and for Cambridge Science Festival. The latter attracts 50,000 visits to the city each year, and raises half its running costs in sponsorship.

I have trained senior communicators at both CASE and HEERA conferences, and provided a variety of senior management media training at Cambridge for academics, and for Pro-VCs and VCs. Crisis management, press relations, anniversaries and celebrations, and external relations strategy are some of the subjects I teach. This year, I was the communications track chair for the main CASE Europe conference, Degrees of Change, at the University of Hertfordshire.

It's impossible to work for Cambridge's Press and Publications Office and not become a specialist in access communications. I worked with Professor Peter Goddard to devise the St John's College Eagle Scheme, for children in inner city South London, and was the project manager for developing the Cambridge Visitor Centre project. Separate to my university work, I have also acted as a consultant with the Ogden Trust to launch its multi-million pound bursary scheme to provide places in independent schools for bright kids from poor families.

At the end of the day, communications in this field is so fascinating because it is all about providing 'front doors' to knowledge - via the media, exhibitions, press articles etc. It is a mutual exchange process: encouraging non-specialists to view and engage with the world of knowledge in all its diversity; and at the same time, helping educators learn how to make themselves relevant to a much wider world, hungry for knowledge."