5 Minutes with… Alexandra Annable
Alexandra Annable has spent the last two decades working in global comms and PR roles for some of the world's biggest brands including Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Facebook, Casio, EA Games, T-Mobile and Accenture. She’s also headed up comms for venture capital and tech startups, helping them grow and scale into new markets and secured seed A to C funding and acquisition.
She helped launch some of the most innovative tech of its time including: mobile music with Universal, Sony and Warner Music way before the iPhone. She also worked on partnerships at T-Mobile including UEFA, Motorola and The Black Eyed Peas.
Recently Alexandra has stepped into the role of head of brand partnerships for the Jukebox festivals team, after being part of the team for nine months and could not be more excited.
She was also appointed as non-exec director of Techfugees, a non profit supporting refugees set up by Techcrunch editor at large Mike Butcher MBE. There, she is in charge of communications and strategic partnerships, and says she is extremely proud of the work Techfugees does as well as her own contribution.
Alexandra is also a trustee at Feeling Social, a mental health business, ambassador for Nutritious Minds and a mentor at Brixton Finishing School. She is a proud public advocate for mental health and neurodiversity, as somebody who left the industry and rejoined back in 2019 after being diagnosed as neurodiverse.
LBB’s Zoe Antonov spoke to Alexandra about her proudest achievements, most exciting projects and her new current role.
LBB> Congrats on your new role! Tell me how you made your way up to head of strategy and brand partnerships.
Alexanda> Thanks! I’m excited to get started. It’s interesting, I actually left the industry back in 2019 after being diagnosed as neurodiverse. I was disillusioned and a little burnt out and I retrained as a rapid transformational therapist. I graduated last summer and was ready to set up my own therapy practice. I’ve known Alex Jukes, founder of Jukebox for a number of years and had done the occasional project work for him here and there. Alex had diversified the agency and set up a web3 and tech division following the decimation of the live entertainment industry during lockdown. He asked me if I would come in on a two-month project. That was back in July 2022, nine months later and I’m still here. I love the agency and the team, it’s a really unique place to work and I guess it’s the energy and the amazing clients that have kept me here. I actually look forward to going into the office these days, even if I’m almost twice everyone’s age. I saw an opportunity to run the brand partnerships team and took it and I am excited to see how I can develop and grow that part of the business.
LBB> Did you always know you'd work in communications or was it more of a happy accident?
Alexandra> Despite studying PR at Bournemouth my route into PR wasn’t a traditional one as I didn’t finish my degree and left uni after 18 months. I actually started my career in customer publishing working on magazines for Harvey Nichols and Land Rover. I’d discounted going into PR. It was a chance temp executive assistant role at T-Mobile supporting the deputy head of comms that set me on a path to work in global PR & comms. I ended up being sent to run the global press trip for T-Mobile’s sponsorship of UEFA’s Euro 2006. I’d never met a journalist, didn’t really know what a press conference was and yet I ended up being sent to Lisbon with our then CMO Nikesh Arora to run the whole trip. I remember my boss having total faith in me and pushing me out of my comfort zone because she knew that I didn’t want to be her assistant for the rest of my career. This trust in my ability when others may have handed this responsibility to someone more qualified than me on paper has informed my leadership style and I will also give people the opportunity to grow outside of their existing role if I see the potential.
LBB> What is the gist of your role and what do you do on a day-to-day basis? What is the one most exciting part of it?
Alexandra> I’ve literally just transitioned into the role, but in essence at Jukebox we can work across approx 200 festivals globally each year either on the PR or partnerships side. My role is to match brands with these festivals to create engaging and authentic partnerships and devise creative brand activations.
LBB> Tell me about your past in comms and PR and how that enriched your skill set for you to step into the position you're currently in.
Alexandra> I guess it’s been a natural progression over the last 25 years. My time in house has given me a great grounding in terms of strategic brand partnerships and sponsorships. In my career I’ve been involved in partnerships with Motorola, the Black Eyed Peas, UEFA, FIFA, Samsung as well as record label collabs with Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music. I’ve also worked on the agency side on big brand campaigns for Sony Electronics, Samsung, Microsoft, Casio, EA Games etc. Working on those big brand campaigns gave me an insight into the wider marketing mix beyond just traditional PR. I’m also lucky that I’ve maintained a lot of my relationships over the years. I guess my comms background gives me the ability to look at how partnerships can be leveraged for PR too.
LBB> What kind of challenges do you expect to arise from your new role and how are you prepared to overcome them?
Alexandra> I guess the biggest and most obvious challenge currently is the reduction in budgets. Brands are having to be more mindful of what they spend, how they spend it and where and there’s more emphasis on ROI and trackability. So again I think being able to look at strategic partnerships holistically and how they can fit into the wider comms and marketing mix might help me to be more creative in terms of securing budgets.
LBB> Tell me about your role as a non-exec director of Techfugees - how does it fit in with your role in Jukebox and how do you juggle the two?
Alexandra> Techfugees was founded by Mike Butcher back in 2015 and I’ve worked with Mike in his role as editor at large at Techcrunch for a number of years in my PR career so I’ve been aware of Techfugees since its inception. I supported them voluntarily for a while before I was asked to join the global board as non-exec director in August last year. I’m lucky that Jukebox have been extremely supportive in letting me dedicate time where needed to Techfugees. I’m extremely passionate about the work we do in supporting displaced persons and refugees particularly during a time of humanitarian crisis such as the war in Ukraine and most recently the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. It’s important to have boundaries though as it’s easy to get carried away when working on such a worthy cause. My Techfugees role is focused on comms and strategic partnerships and so both roles complement each other. I’m currently working on a human trafficking project with four of the main counter trafficking agencies which I’m finding really rewarding.
LBB> Talk to me about your most challenging project to date and what about it are you most proud of?
Alexandra> It’s the work I’m currently doing at Techfugees on changing the negative narrative around refugees and displaced persons. There is so much misinformation out there at the moment and it’s spreading like a virus. We see images of people coming into the UK on boats and the narrative suggests that they are all here to take our benefits and jobs which really isn’t the case at all. Displacement is only going to get worse, currently there are over 100 million people displaced worldwide, that’s 1% of humanity and it’s estimated that there will be 1.2 billion climate migrants by 2050. We work with tech companies to create equitable access to health, education and technology. To develop technology with and for displaced persons, highlight to tech companies the huge resource displaced people can have in terms of filling the digital skills gap. Most importantly we are working with tech companies to develop safe and ethical ways to screen people to ensure they are who they say they are to mitigate human trafficking. It’s a challenging yet massively rewarding role.
LBB> What are your passions outside of work?
Alexandra> I am a passionate advocate for neurodiversity in the creative industries and I mentor neurodiverse women for Brixton Finishing School, I am also an ambassador for Nutritious Minds which focuses on the link between nutrition and ADHD and I am also a trustee at Feeling Social an organisation which is focused on mental health first aid training and teaching young people about digital resilience. Aside from these I am also still pursuing my RTT therapy work.
