Leader to help nurture the next generation
of PR professionals

Leader has been selected to join forces with five other Birmingham PR agencies to launch ‘B-Hive’, a graduate scheme intended to nurture the next generation of Birmingham’s creative talent.

B-Hive is the brain child of specialist marketing recruitment consultancy Pitch Consultants with support from Marketing Birmingham and aims to showcase the best of Birmingham’s Public Relations and Design graduates.

Working in collaboration with Birmingham’s three acclaimed universities; University of Birmingham, Aston University and Birmingham City University as well as Matthew Bolton College, the panel of leading marketing agencies has launched the competition among the students and class of 2008 graduates, who will be asked to present their entries in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ format.

The overall winners plus five ‘highly commended’ entrants in each of the Public Relations and Design categories will all be offered a vital step in obtaining full time employment – four weeks paid work experience this summer with one of the six agencies represented in each panel. The overall winners will also be awarded an additional prize, which will be announced at the presentation evening being held in March.

Ollie Purdom, director of Pitch Consultants, highlights why B-Hive is so important to the region: “The concept of B-Hive is centred around positioning Birmingham as a vibrant hive of creativity. On far too many occasions I have been approached by graduates who are looking for creative jobs outside of Birmingham, because they don’t believe there are enough opportunities in the city and we want to dispel this misconception.

Tom Grocott, account director at Leader will be representing Leader on the judging panel. He said: “Birmingham and the West Midlands has a dynamic and creative PR scene which needs continual investment to ensure we remain a centre of excellence for creativity in the UK. We are proud to be a part of the B-Hive project and look forward to meeting the next generation of PR professionals.”

Throughout February and March just 30 submissions will be short listed, made up of 15 entrants in each of the Public Relations and Design categories. Their entries will then be presented to the panel at Pitch Consultants’ offices and the winners will be announced at an evening event on Tuesday 24th March.

To find out more about the project visit the B-Hive website and click here to find out more about Leader PR