Company: Whiteoaks International
CEO: Hayley Goff
Website: https://whiteoaks.co.uk/
About Whiteoaks International
I joined Whiteoaks in October 2004, straight from university, in what was then our most junior role. I worked my way up through client services, joined the board in 2013 and became CEO in 2023.
Having grown my career within the business, and experienced it from so many different perspectives, I’ve developed a real appreciation for the work our teams do every day and what it takes to do it well. That experience keeps me close to the realities of the job and continues to shape how I lead.
Developing people from within has always been an important part of our culture, and I hope my own career path shows that there are genuine opportunities to grow here.
Growing your career within one business has huge benefits, but it brings challenges too. People have known you for years, often in very different roles, and as your responsibilities change, those relationships have to evolve. You need to be comfortable making difficult decisions, challenging people you may once have reported to or worked alongside, and setting a clear direction.
For me, it’s been about trusting my judgement and recognising that knowing the business so well gives me a strong foundation to lead it, while staying open to different ideas and ways of working.
As a woman in leadership, I’ve also experienced moments of being underestimated or feeling I needed to work harder to establish my credibility. Those experiences have taught me the importance of backing myself and speaking up. They’ve also made me more determined to give others the confidence and opportunities to progress.
Whiteoaks’ mission is to drive greater accountability in B2B tech PR. Too often, businesses are expected to make significant investments in PR without clear commitments on what their agency will deliver, and we simply don’t think that’s good enough.
That’s why we’ve built our Performance PR approach around fixed fees, clear deliverables and measurable KPIs, backed by a money-back guarantee if we don’t meet our commitments. It’s about giving clients confidence in their investment and taking responsibility for delivering the results we’ve promised.
Our heritage is in PR, but we’ve built on that with our own in-house Studio and specialist content, social and creative teams. This allows us to deliver truly integrated campaigns, bringing together the right expertise and channels around our clients’ objectives. Performance runs through everything we do, ensuring that creativity is always backed by clear commitments and measurable results.
Being employee-owned is an important part of this too. Our people have a stake in the business and its future, and we want them to have a voice in how we improve and grow.
We’re showing that an agency can be creative, ambitious and commercially accountable. I want us to keep challenging what clients should expect from their PR partner and investment, and to be prepared to put our own money behind the commitments we make.
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