We've been a bit slack in adding all our wonderful new starters to the blog recently. The main reason being we've had so many! I will be adding them over the next few days so do stay tuned.

Firstly, let me welcome two wonderful additions to the W+K family….

This is Martin Beverley. He joined us at the end of last month as a Senior Planner from AMV BBDO. He's taking the reins on Three and Honda. It took Planning Director Paul Colman two years to convince him to come on over, and we're extremely glad he finally did. 

We are thrilled Vikki Kottler is here as our brand spanking new (well, a few months in) Creative Services Director. She's spent the last three years as head of creative services at the
integrated agency Exposure and has already slotted into life at W+K well. She's currently prepping for the Pumpkin Carving competition tomorrow. Watch out, everyone; she's competitive, really competitive.

As part of our ongoing relationship with leadership development programme The International Exchange, W+K Account Director Hanne Haugen is spending a month working with The Kasiisi Project in Uganda

Hanne writes:

One week in, and I’m
beginning to find my feet on the red Ugandan soil. As would be expected it’s
a very different reality than the one I’m normally faced with. The environment
and culture is probably as far as you can get away from London adland, but
some of the challenges I’m hoping to tackle through my project are not a
million miles away from what we work with our clients to tackle at W+K – how
can we most effectively package and talk about products and services to develop
the business? In this case the goal is to generate profit to support the
education initiatives run by The Kasiisi Project, so that in the long term the
project can become self-sustainable and less reliant on donations from abroad.

There is no lack of
understanding of the importance of communications here, and everyone I’ve talked
to so far has been incredibly supportive of what I’m doing and sees the value
in it. The problem is that as a small organization, they don’t have the
capacity to develop communications strategies and activities. Which is why TIE
provides such an important service. A volunteer with background from
corporate communications, can help create building blocks that feed into a project's future
processes and become an integral part of their mission.

I’m only a week in –
four more to go, and so much more to learn and new information to digest – but
I’m starting to see the bigger picture. It might not always be a smooth
ride – rural Ugandan roads are notoriously bumpy – but I hope that my month
here will be as beneficial to the project as it has already been to me as a
‘communications professional’.

More
info on the project and what I'm up to on my blog: alessoninuganda.tumblr.com

My office

A lovely way to be greeted in the morning

Good advice