The University of Brighton welcomed guest speaker Stuart Mawhinney, Senior PR Manager for Sky Sports last week.

Mawhinney has led multi-million pound marketing campaigns, as well as managing internal and external relationships with famous footballers such as John Terry.

Students from courses including event management and journalism enjoyed the talk which included getting to ask him questions on his role in the company and discussions on his experiences in the PR industry including:

• his work across several different sports platforms: football, golf and rugby
• The Football Association for the England team where he has worked with Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand
• organising for the England football team to have a tour around Auschwitz
• his opinions on the Sam Allardyce allegations
• how he manages engaging Sky Sports content with the wider Sky business

After the talk the event continued with students getting to speak one-on-one with Stuart in the wine area where he gave his contact details and encouraged students to get in touch with him if they are interested in the industry.

Aside from being very friendly and taking plenty of questions, Stuart was a very helpful key note speaker and we hope he will return to talk at the university again.