Paula Sutherland
Partner
An in-house financial services comms ‘lifer’ who’s crossed over to the agency side
As a Partner at 56° North, my day-to-day is focused on two key aspects: calling on my decades of strategic comms experience and expertise to deliver for our wonderful clients, and using my penchant for operational efficiency to help make sure the business, and each member of Team 56, has the right support, tools and infrastructure to develop, grow and succeed.
Before joining 56° North in January 2022, I had spent my career working in-house for large financial services companies – with a particular expertise in leading global PR and internal communications through large-scale mergers, acquisitions and transformation programmes. I feel tremendously lucky to have been working at the forefront of communicating some of the largest life and pensions and asset management deals and change programmes; developing narratives that clearly align with strategy and future ambition, and communication frameworks that support colleagues through programmes that can be complex, lengthy and unsettling. Those years were extremely fulfilling and formed the communications foundation upon which I work today.
But after over quarter of a century in-house, the decision to change track and be part of 56° North was a no-brainer. Having worked with Anthony and John during my time at Lloyds Banking Group, I knew that I would be joining a business that would attract talented, ambitious and driven people who wanted to do extraordinary work with exciting and inspiring clients. And that turned out to be true!
And… To placate my fear of / obsession with great whites that stretches back to a childhood fascination with Jaws and Bond villain shark pools, I jumped into a rickety diving cage off the coast of South Africa. Brad Pitt had been there the week before – talk about bad timing!
