Meet Stephen
Stephen Waddington is a professional advisor at Wadds Inc. and PhD researcher at Leeds Business School who supports agencies and in-house teams across a range management, corporate communications and public relations issues.
Agency and public relations advisor
Stephen was previously managing director at Metia Group (2019-2020), an international digital marketing agency. It creates high-performance campaigns using research, content, demand and earned media. His clients included Amazon, BMW, Capita, Salesforce, and Microsoft.
He was Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum (2012-2018), an Omnicom-owned agency, responsible for integrating digital and social capabilities in client engagements across the agency’s international network. He provided lead senior counsel on integrated global accounts, including IBM, IKEA and Phillips.
He co-founded, managed and sold two award-winning public relations agencies, Rainier PR and Speed.
At Speed (2009-2012), Stephen led the merger of three public relations agencies to develop a modern proposition, service model and workflow. Clients included The Associated Press, Optical Express, The Economist, Symantec, uSwitch for Business and Virgin Media Business.
Rainier PR (1998-2009) was a technology public relations agency focused on technology expertise and a senior client service model. Clients included ARM, ntl (now Virgin Media Business), Intel and Toshiba.
Researcher and teacher
Stephen originally trained as an engineer. His interest in technology and its communicative aspects led him to a career in public relations. He is a PhD research student at Leeds Business School investigating the optimal contributions of public relations to management.
He co-founded Socially Mobile with Sarah Waddington CBE in 2021. The community interest company supports public relations practitioners in increasing their earning potential. It delivers management training to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds and underrepresented and underserved groups.
Stephen is the co-editor with Ralph Tench of the fifth edition of Exploring PR and Management Communication, the definitive book on public relations theory and practice, published by Pearson in January 2021.
His other books include #BrandVandals (Bloomsbury, November 2013), Brand Anarchy (Bloomsbury, February 2012), Platinum (CIPR, September 2018), Share This (Wiley, July 2012) Share This Too (Wiley, September 2013) and Chartered Public Relations: Lessons from Expert Practitioners (Kogan Page, February 2015).
Industry leadership
Stephen was President of the CIPR in 2014, during which time he helped return the organisation to its roots of professionalism as set out in its Royal Charter.
He is the former chairman of the CIPR Artificial Intelligence and Social Media panels. The two groups have led the characterisation of the impact of machines and social media on marketing and public relations practice.
Stephen is a Chartered PR Practitioner, an Honorary Fellow of the CIPR and a Fellow of the PRCA. He was awarded the Mark Mellor Outstanding Contribution to the Industry Award by the PRCA in 2021.
Meet Sarah
Sarah Waddington is a director of Wadds Inc., professional adviser, executive coach and social mobility activist.
Non-executive director
Sarah’s day-to-day job is as a non-executive director to creative agencies and inhouse comms teams. She also provides executive coaching through a one-on-one service and corporate contracts.
As the UK’s only Chartered director and Chartered PR practitioner, she offers a unique mix of governance and communications expertise, as well as significant experience in diversity, equity and inclusion and ESG.
Immediately prior to Wadds Inc. Sarah ran a pioneering hybrid agency bringing together forward-thinking management consultancy with strategic PR and marketing capability to help organisations engage stakeholders and manage reputation. Before that, she ran three northern offices for a large regional networked agency.
She is an IoD ambassador and has more than two decades of experience in helping organisations to articulate their purpose, develop a unique proposition, create value and deliver social impact.
Sarah qualifications include the IoD’s Diploma in Company Direction and The Coaching Academy’s Diploma in Personal Performance Coaching. She is a graduate of Oxford Saïd’s Executive Leadership and Cambridge Judge’s Steering Complex Projects programmes.
She completed Non-Executive Director training with NEDA at the London Stock Exchange and holds a certificate in Organisational Leadership from the Institute of Leadership and Management.
Activist
Sarah’s CBE was awarded in June 2021 for services to public relations and voluntary sectors. She holds the CIPR’s Sir Stephen Tallents Medal for exceptional achievement in public relations and a PRCA award for Outstanding Contribution in Digital.
She is the founder and editor of #FuturePRoof, a series of books and community aimed at reasserting the role of public relations as a management function and making best practice accessible to all.
Sarah co-founded Socially Mobile with Stephen in 2021 in a bid to improve social mobility within the PR industry.
Socially Mobile delivers fully funded training to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, as well as under-represented and under-served groups including Black and ethnic minority practitioners, the LGBTQ+ community, women returners and those with disabilities.
Communicator
Sarah is a well-respected publisher, podcaster and speaker.
Through the #FuturePRoof community she founded, and using a guest contribution model, Sarah has curated, edited and published six books, a white paper characterising the public relations agency business, another exploring the mental wellbeing of the profession and papers on disinformation and influencer marketing.
Sarah is a Past President of the CIPR and features on Provoke Media’s Innovator 25 EMEA 2021 list.
Her industry expertise sees her regularly called upon to speak at international conferences and events, as well as provide extensive media commentary on a range of industry matters.