AMBITIOUS Agency Member

Member Bio

Key People

Lis Anderson

Lis is an experienced PR consultancy Director and MD with over 20 years in the B2B and B2C marketing communications industry. Agency side she has held Board level positions at JBP, also as a partner of Worldcom Public Relations Group, and Bray Leino (Speed Communications) before launching AMBITIOUS. Alongside her PR agency career, Lis also founded and ran Talking Heads for 13 years - a communications training network that delivered affordable courses delivered by practitioners for practitioners in the areas of social media, marketing communications, PR and crisis management. Passionate about the region and the creative industries sector, Lis is both active and involved in a number of organisations including a Bristol Creative Industries, where she is Vice Chair and is a Fellow of the Charted Institute of Public Relations.

Sarah Woodhouse

An experienced PR agency owner, Sarah has worked at a senior level in both the UK and internationally for leading agencies including McCann, Edelman and Cohn & Wolfe. After studying PR at Bournemouth University, Sarah joined the Press Office team at Harrods. Moving agency side, she stayed in London to join Edelman where she worked across a number of big brands, running strategic and creative campaigns and hardworking press offices for clients including Coca-Cola, Burger King, Microsoft, Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Pillsbury, Kingfisher. This work included European coordination and UK domestic briefs. A move out to Hong Kong for seven years saw Sarah join leading Asia Pacific PR agency impactasia of which she become a co-owner. Sarah helped grow the business significantly across Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing and was involved in the successful sale of the agency to WPP's Cohn & Wolfe brand when she took on the role of Group Managing Director. At AMBITIOUS Sarah is the dynamo behind the agency’s new business development, working with prospects to develop PR programmes and agree KPIs. She is also the driving force behind Social Media Week Bristol. An event she made successful during her time in Hong Kong before helping to bring the concept to Bristol.

Helen Embleton

Helen has over 18 years’ experience of developing and delivering effective PR campaigns – working for both PR agencies and in-house as a senior PR Manager. Agency side, Helen worked at IMS Marketing Communications and Berkeley PR. Client experience includes everything from edtech and training providers through to environmental publishers and waste management firms. In-house, Helen’s experience includes seven years as PR Manager for Savills in the South West & Wales and PR Manager for logistics giant Wincanton. A stickler for client service, she’s incredibly organised and experienced at running busy PR campaigns – from planning to delivering results - generating media coverage and handling sensitive crises and issues for clients. At AMBITIOUS Helen is a Team Lead, heading up a range of clients across B2B, trade and corporate sectors. In particular, Helen has extensive property PR experience – from new developments to property agency. She is also a member of the South West Women in Property group.

Greg Halse

Greg has over 10 years PR agency experience having worked agency side across B2B, corporate, tech and creative industries. After studying for a Masters in Broadcast Journalism at Falmouth University, Greg joined London based Franklin Rae PR working with TV, film and entertainment sector clients including Fremantle Media Enterprises and The Royal Television Society. A move to tech PR agency Marlin PR gave Greg international experience working on Sage, Melbourne ITDBS, Bang & Olufsen and Sony Pro. He returned to the South West with a move to Cohesive Communications where he worked with a broad range of clients, such as social media aggregator Blurrt, IT service provider Logicalis UK and a number of cyber security vendors including iSIGHT Partners, FireEye and Fortinet.

Izzy Bryant

Izzy is responsible for creative content production, supporting the team with all things content – from graphic design and presentation decks to filming, video editing and photography. She also supports the AMBITIOUS social media channels and in particular enjoys an Instagram story. Having studied Level 3 Diploma in Creative Media and Technology and undertaking an Advanced Level 3 Apprenticeship in Content Production through Cirencester College, which was a split role between Bristol Creative Industries and AMBITIOUS, Izzy’s learning covered video editing, Animation, camera, mic operation and production practises, photo editing, storyboard and script creation, idea development, graphic design, project management, videography, photography and basic audio editing. An advocate of getting into the creative industry through apprenticeships, Izzy has spoken at the BBC Academy’s Digital Cities about alternative career pathways, such as college and apprenticeships. At AMBITIOUS Izzy is involved in planning and crafting social media posts; using her camera and the Adobe creative suite to create and edit imagery and video content and writing blogs to support for SEO.

Liam Britnell

Liam is an established senior PR consultant with eight years’ experience working across B2B and B2C clients. He has built up extensive knowledge working on award-winning integrated campaigns for household brands such as Booking.com, American Express and Qantas, as well as tech start-ups and fintech organisations. Liam has worked for PR agencies in the UK and New Zealand, as well as holding freelance and in-house roles.

Katy Barney

Katy is experienced in strategic communications and PR, having worked across both public and private sectors. Katy started her career in the communications department of an agency of the European Union. In the corporate world, Katy is experienced in stakeholder and crisis communications and has worked with the leading membership organisation for City lawyers, a multinational integrated energy company and a number of clients in the construction and built environment sector. At AMBITIOUS, Katy will be applying her knowledge to clients across our specialist sectors, with a focus on sustainability issues.

Rob Stewart

Rob is a media relations specialist with extensive experience of leading national and regional newspaper journalism, agency and national charity PR. During a ten-year spell as a news journalist, Rob worked for the Huddersfield Examiner, Newcastle Chronicle & Journal Group, and as a senior reporter with the Hull Daily Mail. A move to the South West in 2015 accompanied a move to the Alzheimer’s Society London-based national media team where he spearheaded fundraising and awareness-raising campaigns for the dementia charity. Rob works hard to put his media know-how and regional and national media contacts to good use to deliver for AMBITIOUS clients.

Joe Wright

Joe leads our cutting edge digital communications offer. Leveraging data-driven insights, online reputation management techniques and creative content campaigns, Joe delivers high impact strategies for a range of clients. Joe’s honed his skills in two of London’s premier strategic communications firms, working on large international corporate mandates for the likes of bp, HSBC and Bayer, as well as on specialist projects for financial services institutions and foreign governments. He has his finger on the pulse of the latest industry trends and is passionate about innovation – he’s constantly striving to build and develop what AMBITIOUS can offer in the space.

Simon Boddy

Simon is an experienced PR professional, with a decade of agency experience working across a wide range of B2C and B2B clients. Throughout this time, Simon has worked across a wide portfolio of clients and sectors; ranging from events and festivals such as The Bristol Harbour Festival, Balloon Fiesta and Countryfile Live; to leisure and hospitality, local authority and leading outdoor brands.

Key Clients