Our Consultants
Our consultants have a proven track record of working together on a comprehensive range of projects within the public, private and voluntary sectors.
You can take a quick look at our team here or call us for copies of full CVs.
Richard Astle MIPR
Before setting up Athene in June 2003, Richard was Corporate Affairs Director for AMP Pearl, one of the country's leading financial services groups. He specialises in developing comprehensive communication plans for a range of projects and change programmes, working mainly in the financial services and public sectors. Richard won the Institute of Public Relations Sword of Excellence for public affairs in 2000.
Caroline Parsons
Caroline has a strong track record of delivering communications services in arrange of public and private sector organisations.
In the public sector she has held lead communications roles in acute hospitals, primary care trusts and local authorities. Caroline won an HSJ (Health Service Journal) award for communications for her campaign to improve the reputation and profile of Bedford Hospital NHS Trust. Most recently she has been head of communications at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and at Peterborough City Council.
Caroline has also worked in utilities and in the private sector, where she has managed accounts for a number of high profile household brands. As Athene’s Deputy Managing Director, Caroline manages across all the company’s accounts in both public relations and community engagement.
Jane Smith MIPR, DipCIM
Athene’s PR and Communications Director, Jane is an award-winning communications professional with 20 years' experience gained in the travel, financial, retail and public sectors. She specialises in strategic communications planning for major projects and organisational change, and in creative PR that delivers measurable results. Jane currently leads on our work with Indesit Company and the Phoenix Group (formerly Pearl).
Louise Phillips
Louise has a background in community relations and internal communication. She specialises in organising events and corporate hospitality. While at Pearl Assurance she was responsible for the Kids Club Network and AMP's headline sponsorship of The Oval cricket ground and Surrey County Cricket Club.
As Athene's Office Manager, Louise manages all HR, finance and management reporting.
Phil Newby
Phil has worked in senior public and private sector roles.
As Group Property Director at Thomas Cook he led complex property transactions whilst working on mergers and acquisitions. As Executive Director at English Nature, Phil was responsible for communications, external relations, customer service and information, and dealt with small and large scale environmental issues between 2003 and 2006.
When not working with Athene, Phil brokers and facilitates environmental projects with partners that include Local Authorities, Defra, The Daily Mail, IBM, UK CEED, BAM Nuttall and Royal Haskoning. Outside work Phil and his family have conceived, built and live in one of the lowest carbon homes in the country.
Satnam Wahiwala
Satnam is an experienced media and PR expert specialising in consumer PR and crisis communications on an international, national and local basis. She has worked with a number of blue-chip companies and not-for-profit organisations to boost their media profiles.
Previously Satnam spent a number of years in a communications role at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) where she managed media relations, marketing campaigns, conferences and online communications.
Steve Titman
Steve is an award winning BBC journalist and producer who will work across a range of projects at Athene. Steve joins Athene after five years with the BBC – in which he achieved record breaking listener figures at Radio Cambridgeshire – and collected the national Gold Gillard Award in 2010 for the BBC Cambridgeshire breakfast show.
He brings a wealth of experience of how the modern media works and how content is now produced over a range of platforms. He understands what the media requires – and has a vast experience of delivering key messages concisely to give maximum impact. A key addition to Athene - Steve has a great range of contacts across Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the Eastern Region.
Ryan Hyman
Ryan is a recent Media and Communication graduate from the Department of Humanities at De Montfort University, Leicester. He undertook a variety of strategic communication modules, including core modules of public relations and political communication. Finishing top of his class, Ryan also received the 'Most Accomplished Media Studies Dissertation Award' for his dissertation which examined the strategic communication of the political leaders during the televised leaders' debates in the UK.
As an Account Executive at Athene, Ryan will support the delivery of the company's public relations accounts.
Nyree Ambarchian
Nyree is Community Engagement Manager at Athene. Having spent the last three years developing and delivering effective community engagement strategies for the third sector, Nyree has worked both behind the scenes and on the frontline of community engagement. She has a wealth of experience in planning integrated communication campaigns across a range of online and offline channels. This includes producing communication collateral like brochures, exhibition boards and websites; organising events; running online campaigns via social networks; as well as media management.
An Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Nyree has provided a range of organisations in the private, public and third sectors with communications support, including a national farming charity, the UK’s largest organic veg box delivery company, and a multi-national built and natural environment consultancy.
Louise Harrison
Louise has been a senior Personal Assistant for over 8 years, working for Kidney Research UK and more recently working for the Greater Peterborough Partnership and Athene Communications on a wide variety of projects and events. During her time at Kidney Research she specialized in organising corporate events along with elite events for supporters of the charity with venues including The House of Lords and the ITV offices.
Ann McHugh AAT PgDMS APDPR
Ann has 12 years experience of delivering communications strategies in large complex organisations. She has worked in the private sector, in the financial and transport industries and more recently in the NHS and local government. An award-winning communicator Ann specialises in internal communications, media relations, change communications and community engagement. She leads on all Athene's health-related client work.
Pete Bowman
Words are Pete’s forte and he has deployed his copywriting skills across an expansive range of corporate, promotional and commercial publications, presentations and video scripts.