"Sitting with Nellie” was great career start

‘Sitting with Nellie” is a colloquial British phrase for learning a job by observing and mimicking an experienced worker.

For Martina Byrne the guest on this episode it was an early introduction to the world of communications.

In her case the ’Nellie’ or ‘Nellies’ were two experienced executives at Murray Consultants in Dublin, the late Michael Colley and Pat Keating, who now runs his own agency.

During the conversation with Jim and Ellen she says, "I was hugely lucky to have such great mentors and I continue to encourage new entrants to the business to take every opportunity to watch closely and learn from their more senior colleagues.

"With so many people working from home there needs to be a balance between WFH and person to person engagement in an office.” she says

Martina also discusses the benefits of being in an office with different colleagues. These include being able to have conversations about strategy and client activities, the ability to throw questions across the room in real time, to learn from seeing people under pressure, how they respond and being visible to senior leaders and make an impression on them.

Other themes covered in this episode include, the importance of crisis communications, critical thinking, the transferability of PR/Communications skills, the need for a 'Sheriff 'with regard to AI and the importance of board governance and responsibility

Martina Byrne comes from a farming family in Galway. Her first experience of working in an office came while studying for a BA Communications Degree at Dublin City University. As part of the degree programme she acquired a work experience position in the international tech company IBM.

Her career proper began with Murray Consultants and she moved on to two other agencies in the PR world, McMahon & Partners and Wilson Hartnell, before moving in-house with the energy company Statoil. At Statoil she set up and led the communications department across multiple energy entities in Ireland. She subsequently went back to Wilson Hartnell as as Executive Director and Board Member. From 2017 until earlier this year she was CEO and Deputy Company Secretary for the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) and the Public Relations Consultants Association Ireland (PRCA).

In addition she has been a researcher with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and a Post Doctoral Lecturer in social science at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) and University College Dublin (UCD).  In 2024 she was appointed as a Non-Executive Member of the Board of Governors & Guardians at the National Gallery of Ireland by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht and Sport.

Earlier this year she established her own agency, Byrne Consultants.

Such a depth of experience provides listeners to this episode with much to consider and learn from when evaluating their own careers.

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