10
The Big Interview
March 2016
In the spotlight
The CEO at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations goes on the record
Alastair McCapra has been CEO of the
Chartered Institute of Public Relations since
November 2013.
CIPR is a professional body in the
United Kingdom for public relations
practitioners with over 11,000 members.
The association provides training and
education, publishes a code of conduct
and hosts awards and events.
McCapra says that much of his role as
CEO is about forward planning and trying
to get a sense of what the risk environment
will be for the CIPR’s activities over the
coming six to nine months. He explains
that most of the association’s work rolls
forward on a more or less continuous basis
– membership renewals, training workshops
and recruitment. But, whenever it is about
to make major changes, or when it has new
products and services, McCapra and his
team have to make judgements about when
the best time is to launch them.
He says: “However complicated other
things may be, I must admit that large
events always give me the biggest
headaches. Almost anything else we do has
some wriggle room or flexibility, but once
we are committed to a particular event on
a particular date, we are effectively locked
into it and have to make it work. That
translates into pressure of a kind we don’t
get from elsewhere.
“Our biggest and highest profile event is
our annual Excellence Awards night, held in
June. There’s lot of reputational value tied up
in that one night – if the caterers or the AV
let us down, we’re exposed and potentially
that may put people off booking the next
year. Excellence isn’t our only Awards night
– we run nine more PRide Awards dinners
around the UK each autumn. Each of those
brings special challenges – often, a new
venue; sometimes, new local committee
members who may have limited experience
CN_02.16_AEM.indd 10
of working on events at this scale. Every
now and again we are unlucky enough to
have an MC who goes a bit off-piste and
pushes the jokes a bit far - or, sometimes,
not far enough - but we’ve never had a
major meltdown.”
In 2016 the association has a new
challenge, McCapra says.
CIPR has decided to scale up its work
to become a chartered profession, and
the target is for 280 members to become
Chartered Public Relations Practitioners
over the course of the year.
He says: “That means running around a
dozen Chartership Assessment Days up
and down the country – sometimes more
than one a month – to ensure member have
enough opportunities to qualify. That’s a
radical change for us and I’ll be watching it
closely as it beds in.
“Fifteen years ago, when the internet
began to have an impact on how
associations delivered their services, the
prevailing wisdom was that everything
would go digital. Yet in a world where
most things are digital, the value of faceto-face meetings has perhaps never been
higher. Members may no longer turn out
as regularly as they did, but they certainly
will come to events which are well-timed,
well-placed and offer them
opportunities they can’t
get online.
“Just as members don’t
want digital to replace
all their meetings,
they don’t want it
to replace their
magazine either.
The CIPR is
swimming
against the
tide by
launching
CIPR:
• has 11,000 members
• is overseeing its first 280 members
becoming chartered professionals with
the running of a dozen Chartership
Assessment Days
• is launching a magazine in 2016
• runs Annual Excellence Awards in June
its own membership magazine in 2016 –
something we haven’t had for years.”
“That’s another thing that carries a lot
of reputational value and risk, and we’re
counting on it being a game-changer for us
in our member engagement in 2016.”
18/02/2016 09:57