Events

The Ampleforth Society warmly invites its members to the latest Career Insight event exploring the media and communications industry on Tuesday 23rd February at 6.45pm.

We communicate every minute of each day, be it in our words and actions, or through images, videos and messages. Whatever the medium, communication is key. Working in Media and Communications is fast-paced, exciting and ever-changing. The sector has continued to grow at pace, and so have the opportunities within the industry. Join our OA panellists to learn more about this exciting industry.

The event will be chaired by Ampleforth Society London Committee Chair, Rory Smith (H09), and will feature guest speakers Emily Rudman (M11), Patrick Arbuthnott (O12), Erris de Stacpoole (M07), Rupert Lewis (W94) and Lallie Fraser (A08). The panellists will discuss their career journey from Ampleforth to present day, and debate what the future holds for the media and communications industry. 

Full details of our panellists can be found below. Please complete the form at the bottom of this page to register.

Rory Smith (H09)  After an internship with a national newspaper in India immediately after leaving Ampleforth, Rory has since written for a variety of newspapers, magazines and websites, covering everything from travel to food, motoring to sport. More recently, Rory was editor of the electric racing series Formula E and now works as editor for the technology company Dyson.

Emily Rudman (M11)  After graduating from the University of Exeter in 2014, Emily spent a year working as an Au-Pair in Seville, Spain and studied Spanish in her spare time. After returning from Spain, she began her career as an intern in a small business-to-business technology PR agency in London called Kwitten, followed by time spent at a mid-sized PR agency, Brands2Life, where she worked with a number of brands including American Express on communications campaigns. For the past two years Emily has been working in the civil service in the Department for International Trade’s Press Office, where she currently leads on media for UK trade policy relating to the Americas.  She is also Press Secretary to the Minister of State for Trade Policy.

Patrick Arburthnott (O12)  Patrick graduated from Edinburgh University in 2016, having spent a year living and studying in Delhi as part of a student exchange programme. He joined a fast-growing Fintech start-up for two years before moving to what3words. He has since helped emergency services throughout the UK use their technology to save time, resources and lives. More recently he has been focused on launching their operations in Australia.

Erris de Stacpoole (M07)  Erris is a PR and Communications specialist working predominantly in the creative, marketing and media industry across a variety of sectors such as retail, FMCG, health, fast food, insurance, automotive, telecoms and banking.  After leaving Ampleforth, she graduated from Chelsea College of Arts and went onto University in Bristol. She started her career as a Brand Account Manager at Bompas & Parr working with brands such as Diageo, Marks & Spencer, Dropbox, Coca-Cola, Facebook and more. She then started at specialist PR agency Pumpkin, working with some of the biggest advertisers including Ogilvy & Mather, WPP, M&C Saatchi, McCann and ITV. In 2018 she joined the third biggest advertising network in the world, Publicis Groupe, working with clients such as McDonald’s, BT, Iceland, SKODA, Procter & Gamble and many more. She is currently PR & Communications Lead at UNLIMITED Group.

Rupert Lewis (W94)  Rupert has twenty years’ experience providing communications, reputation management and public affairs counsel to a wide range of global and UK-based corporate and individual clients.  He specialises in advising clients who operate in heavily regulated and highly scrutinised sectors, including infrastructure, financial services, FMCG, technology, telecoms and manufacturing. In 2018, Rupert set up his own consultancy, Grandison Communications.

Lallie Fraser (A08)  Lallie runs the PR consultancy, Polka Dot Elephant, which looks after the media relations for luxury travel and hospitality clients - and most recently, a venture capital firm too.  Lallie left the valley for France where she attended the University of London Institute in Paris. From there, she hopped back over the channel to the bright lights of London where she started off as an intern for the Daily Mirror on the fashion pages. Important roles there included styling the Strictly Come Dancing contestants, sampling new spray tan devices and writing Tess Daly’s page. The internship led to a freelance role, which was fantastic, but sadly, getting predominantly paid in clothes and make-up wasn’t going to be sustainable in the long-term!  Lallie knew the luxury travel world was a dream career move, so she found a role at one of the leading luxury travel PR agencies in the UK and moved up the ranks there for close to a decade, travelling every corner of the world, meeting fascinating journalists, hoteliers, chefs, artists, designers and everything in between. She decided she had built enough of a knowledge toolkit and had a wide enough network to set up shop on her own.  Her next move was the launch of Polka Dot Elephant, where she creates PR campaigns for luxury hotel and hospitality brands to get their voices heard in the UK media. With Covid-19 throwing a proverbial spanner in the works and causing the hospitality industry to fall on its knees, she’s diversified and is currently doing a project for a venture capital company, while working on her long-term passion project, The Forest Project (a reforestation project which connects people back to nature).