Alex Cole
Founder, Radiator Leadership
@alexcole is joining NoTurningBack2020 as an Advisor to focus on our Retention programmes. She has had an illustrious career from working at The Labour Party in her early working life, Cadbury for 7 years and was at Sainsburys with Justin King. She has had stints agency side and then most recently was Chief of Sustainability and Corporate Affairs Officer at BUPA for 7 years especially challenging during the COVID crisis. She has recently set up the executive, team and organisation development consultancy – Radiator Leadership and is Chair of the Bupa Foundation. Welcome Alex
I’d always fancied journalism but realised that you don’t get to stick with a story and actually make change happen. Working inside companies you get to shape the story as well as tell it. My first in-house job was with Cadbury and I was ring-side on a whole host of interesting things – from putting together the first ever programme on climate action to trying to stop the company from being taken over. I also got to eat a lot of chocolate – and led the move to turn it Fairtrade ?.
My first proper job was working as a researcher in the Labour Party. I wrote to every single Labour MP and just kept shamelessly bugging other researchers week after week until an opening came up. I had no connections but made up for it in persistence. It was an emergency role as a temp that got me in the door and from there I got a permanent role working for Jack Straw who led on Home Affairs (crime, immigration, LGBTQ rights). We were in Opposition (not Government) and it was a very entrepreneurial environment to be thrown into: a tiny team where everyone did a bit of most things. I was managing the media but also writing policy, speeches, answering letters, talking to stakeholders, campaigning. No day was the same and you had to be ready to deal with anything and everything that happened.
After Labour won the 1997 General Election, instead of going into government (which is very bureaucratic), I went to start up an agency (another entrepreneurial experience, this time testing my commercial skills). We were pitching for work against much more established agencies and won most accounts by showing how different and agile we were. To be honest we were making a lot of it up as we went along, but it was brilliant fun and we built a great, tight team. 20 years on we’re still firm friends. As well as the client work, I loved the broader business side of things – the finances, marketing, new business and HR aspects. And many of the grads I hired and developed have gone onto be CEOs.I get a real kick out of seeing what they’ve achieved.
I realised I wanted to take the next step into business and moved in-house to Cadbury, one of my clients. I started in a role focused on government and community relations in the Corporate Affairs team, then moved into marketing and business development, followed by a job running innovation. I went back into Corporate Affairs as the global Director taking this broader experience with me. When Cadbury got taken over, I went back to agency but missed being ‘inside the brand’. So I went to Sainsbury’s where I worked for Justin King the CEO and on the sponsorship of the Paralympics and Comic Relief as well as heavy-duty financial comms (UK retail is one of the most interesting and competitive beats you can find). When Justin left, I went to Bupa and became a member of its executive team leading Corporate Affairs globally. Two years in, I was asked to add the Customer and Brand agendas to my role.
Last year, I led the company’s response to the global pandemic, one of the most professionally challenging but satisfying things I’ve ever done. I’m also the Chair of the Bupa Foundation, an independent charity that invests in social inclusion and wellbeing. I’ve just left Bupa to set up a leadership and development consultancy with a Corporate Affairs flavour. I think these are times where we need more and better ‘Corporate Affairian’ thinking in companies closing the gap between what the company does and what the world expects.
Along the way I’ve experienced most of the individual areas (by which I mean corporate comms, consumer comms, marketing, public affairs, ESG/Sustainability, customer experience, innovation). But I think my specialism would actually be bringing them together and connecting people to make things happen. That’s how you get to be providing the best counsel to CEOs and having the biggest impact.
Leading the COVID-19 response in a global healthcare company (Bupa) probably beats all others. It called on so many things that I have learned over the years – but also a whole host of new skills. We had to adapt and innovate in the most extreme circumstances imaginable. Corporate Affairs were central to the organisation’s efforts to protect the safety and wellbeing of our people, serve our customers and play a part in each country’s response. We had to manage what was happening in the here-and-now, and also think ahead to what might happen next – the famous Corporate Affairian capability of ‘seeing round corners’. I could not be prouder of the people I worked with over this time.
It’s a problem for all sectors to be missing talent and insights. For Marketing and Comms/Corporate Affairs our job is to help organisations see things in different and new ways from the internal ‘bubble’ that can insulate them. So it’s particularly important for us.
As a gay woman, I’ve always been committed to inclusion and been involved in various initiatives to improve equality in society as well as the organisations I’ve worked for. This year, like many people, I realised that I need to do more to encourage and support Black, Asian and ethnic minority people in my own profession. NoTurningBack is my way of giving back to a profession that I love.
You need a clear statement from the very top backed up by visible, meaningful action and practical education. You need to monitor and measure: employee feedback surveys and analysis of pay, recruitment and promotions so you can see what the lived experience and organisational reality is. You need to have training, communication and engagement to make it an active part of your culture.
Apply for Job