Former head of comms for BBC Studioworks joins The PR Network
We're delighted to announce that Karen Meachen has joined PRN this week as a third Client Services Director in our permanent UK-based team.
Karen joins from the BBC where she spent the past four and a half years as Head of Communications for its commercial division, BBC Studioworks. Whilst there, she was responsible for external and internal communications and was a member of its Executive Committee.
Prior to this, she worked for the publishing powerhouse, Hearst, overseeing the communications and events strategies for global magazine titles including Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Good Housekeeping and Women’s Health. Karen’s time culminated in her becoming Head of PR for the UK business and its 26 brands. Her in-house roles saw her manage a wealth of agencies across the communications spectrum.
In a beautifully circular tale, Karen worked with PRN’s co-founders George Blizzard and Nicky Regazzoni at Bite Communications in the early 2000s. Karen was a key team member in Bite’s European Services Division, where she worked with b2b and b2c brands including Apple, BT, Duracell and SAP, delivering coherent comms programmes across Europe.
She’ll work alongside our other CSDs Eileen Boydell & Katy Campbell to shape our proposition for international companies. Her client-side experience will be invaluable as we create new products and services to be delivered via our virtual teams worldwide.
Karen says: “I’ve long admired The PR Network and I’m thrilled to be joining such a progressive business. The team is exceptionally talented and delivers exemplary service around the globe. I’m looking forward to working with them as we grow our offering and create new and innovative opportunities which further enhance our customer experience.”
George says: “It’s a hugely exciting time to be joining the agency. We’re now a £4.2m agency focused on helping clients deliver effective campaigns across multiple markets via the PRN Hub, working with world-leading brands such as Workday, Snap and our new client, plant-based meat firm, Beyond Meat. Since we first worked together in 2003, I’ve admired Karen’s ability to build firm relationships with clients, she instinctively knows what they want and how to deliver effectively.”