Catherine McFarland – Senior account manager
What is your role at bClear?
I am highly responsible for sharing great witticisms and misguided facts.
Otherwise, I work with truly wonderful clients, media, colleagues and suppliers to craft and deliver on PR and wider communications strategies and tactics.
What is your background and experience?
I’m an Oracle Markies Award finalist and have worked in PR and communications since my mid-twenties. So not for very long. Smirk.
Key sectors include technology, legal and finance. On the global agency side, I’ve been worked with clients such as IBM, Kodak, FedEx and The Business Software Alliance (BSA).
Inhouse, I’ve helped develop businesses such as Global Address before it was acquired by Harte-Hanks, and the fast-growing Cloud Direct.
Aside from PR strategies, media and analyst relations, I love the whole gamut of marketing communications. I do everything from producing corporate films, webinars and animations where I’ll also write the script, storyboard and direct. Crisis comms, email and marketing strategies, writing white papers, blogs and social media… you get the gist.
Before PR, I spent a year exploring random roles at Saatchi & Saatchi, Channel 5 and in the locations team on black comedy feature film Preaching to the Perverted, which certainly had its moments.
What inspires you?
Lunchtime smells of pine trees, salty seas and seaweeds during coastal strolls.
Food and drinks always inspire me rather much, as do thoughtful collaborative people, bravery and compassion.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
As above, plus the hilarious, clever and supportive people I work with. They really are crackers. The good kind.
And I’m super lucky to have great clients who are willing to trust us with their business and sanity.
What do you like to do when you’re not at bClear?
Mainly sleep, eat and drink. Plus some occasional personal admin like washing and so forth. Yes, of course, I do hang with family and friends and enjoy adventures at home and abroad.
I love writing children’s poetry, mountains, riding, skiing and singing. Actually, all of those can be done up mountains. So mountains, then.
What does this photo mean to you?
Up a munro in Glencoe – the Glen Etive Hills. My father snapped this as we neared the peak and I had a sudden freakish moment of disorientation from looking at the camera. Hence the hand plunge into the icy snow and slightly foolish grin. Happy days.