ARM Holdings' Ellie Springett took a somewhat circuitous route into tech communications. She talks with Andrew Thomas about her journey

Photographs by Jeff Leyshon

It could have all been so different for Ellie Springett, ARM Holdings’ director of marketing communications and PR. At 18, her lens was focused on a career as a documentary movie maker. She applied to the two film schools with any credibility, London and Bournemouth (now part of the London College of Communication and the Arts University College at Bournemouth), and was accepted by both. This was the late ’70s, however, and her parents, possibly overdosing on a toxic diet of sensationalist stories of capital living, hid the London offer, presenting Bournemouth as her only option. It was only when working on a documentary on London in her final year that she found out.

“I have the ultimate respect for my Dad - he did what he thought was right,” says Springett, adding “Actually I was a bit of a rebel at the time, so it was probably for the best.”

Springett loved Bournemouth. While the parties may have been gentler, the course was to prove more valuable in the long term. “We studied how to make films and radio programmes, but also the theory of communications, the psychology of communications”. 

While her contemporaries went on to make names for themselves in the broadcast world, one running Blue Peter, another controlling entertainment on ITV, for Springett the broadcast career she sought proved elusive. There was a brief stint as a researcher on the BBC flagship daytime programme Pebble Mill but, other than that, her options, together with her money, were slowing running out.

It was then she got her break. Recently privatised National Power was looking for a number of marketers, and she applied. “I was interviewed by PA’s Steve Turpin, who was consulting for National Power. He told me that I had no experience.” Undeterred, Springett rounded on Turpin, “I told him filmmaking was all about communication and we hit if off.” As well as giving Springett her first communications role, she also got the chance to make an award winning movie.

Turpin told her it was going to be busy and there was much to do. “But he gave me some money and told me we were going to make a corporate film.” Her movie, explaining a major change management programme and a new IT infrastructure investment, went on to win gold in the training category of the IVCA Awards.

It was at National Power that Springett met Andy Roe, then head of media relations, but later to become its head of corporate communications. “He was a typical old hack. A really good PR person. He’d get many calls on big issues; on energy impact, pylons and so on. I saw how well he handled the calls, and I got more and more interested in media.” Realising that National Power wasn’t going to give her that chance she moved to Royal Mail. 

Royal Mail had recruited Springett to streamline the external communications systems, and her first move was to reduce, from 30, the number of PR agencies the organisation used. More importantly she made sure there was a universal approach to hiring, managing and evaluating them. With so much exposure to the agency world it was, perhaps, not surprising that, like so many others, the gamekeeper should be attracted to the wilder side of poaching.

Carl Courtney, one of the three founders ICAS PR (now Publicasity), and still its chairman, could not believe that this communications careerist would want a job outside of London. “He kept asking me why I wanted to work in Hemel Hempstead,” Springett says. “But I wasn’t into sweet-wrapper PR – I’d seen so many agencies at Royal Mail, that I knew that I wanted to do B2B and corporate work.”

It’s hard not to like Springett – her warmth is infectious. She’s also one of those people who looks for qualities to like in others, particularly those to whom she reports. “I’ve worked with so many different types of people that I know quickly whether I’m going to get value from a leader, from a boss. I want to find ways to connect with them,” says Springett. She connected with Courtney and loved her time at ICAS.

She was there from 1994 to 1998; early days of comms technology and internet use. Outgoing press releases would be kept on a file on Courtney’s desk and Friday would be the day that staff would present outbound releases. “It sounds antiquated now, Carl would go through every one, looking for style issues and typos. You made sure you bloody well got it right.”

Ellie Springett certainly made her mark, recruiting Emma Wright and Zoe Ward-Waring, now Publicasity’s MD and UK MD respectively, but there came a point when she felt there was little left to learn from the agency. After a brief stint at specialist broadcast agency Bulletin, Springett went to NextFifteen’s Text100, to work on the Microsoft account and its reputation work, despite her minimal tech experience.

Shortly after joining, Springett found herself part of the management team that was creating Text100 spin-off August One. “We went from start-up to being one of the top 20 PR firms, with a £6 million turnover and 40 staff. However, what was exciting was the sheer diversity of the work and the people with whom I worked.”

She reminisces fondly about her time at August One. She was there for six years, the longest stretch on her career resume. Not only did she help the agency diversify, bringing in non-tech clients like Axa Insurance, Homebase and her old employer, Royal Mail, but her business experience grew, as did her trophy cabinet, with a PRCA award for British Gas, and a COI award for best government campaign.

But trophies arent enough, and after six years life for Ellie Springett started to look less exciting. “The business then wasn’t doing so well. We had just taken on all of the staff from (sister agency) Joe Public, which had just folded. I had a young child as well, and I was shortchanging myself. I needed to take stock and stop for some reflection time.”

There was a brief period of running her own consultancy, working with start-ups. Although Springett describes this as fun, she is unable to hide the loneliness that someone so outgoing must have felt. Fortunately salvation came in the position as head of communications with the Energy Saving Trust. Although she was simultaneously offered a bigger, more lucrative, role with a prominent agency, the Energy Saving Trust allowed Springett to job share, and, as the mother of a year-old baby this had obvious appeal. Frustratingly, the other job share worker left soon after she started, so the job became full time.

It is clear that Springett is proud of her achievements with the Energy Saving Trust. “I built it up from nothing. They had no press office and about 15 agencies on their roster.” More importantly, however, it was a move back in-house after a considerable period working for agencies. Springett appreciates both sides of the eternal agency/in-house debate. “In an agency, the more senior you are, the less likely you are to get involved with client work, but what I do miss about agencies is being able to put the phone down and say right then, I’ll do something else today. I’ll work on this client.”

Springett rose to the challenge of working for an NGO. From her social media footprint emerge phrases such as ‘civil rights and social action’, ‘poverty alleviation’ and ‘economic empowerment’. But at the same time she has the pragmatism of a no-nonsense communicator. “I looked at the environmental charity sector and realised why people aren’t doing anything. It’s just not in their language. There’s this whole language of climate change that is ridiculous. People aren’t going to change behaviour if they can’t understand what the issues are.”

The figures that Springett casually drops into the conversation are consistently impressive: over a million conversations as part of an ongoing audit, a 150% increase in the awareness of climate change and a PR Week award for her campaign to ban patio heaters. But after three years, she felt ready to move on. Despite her experience and achievements there is still a note of surprise in Springett’s voice when she talks of her appointment as global director of communications with Virgin Unite, the independent charitable arm of Virgin, “I didn’t really think they would go for me. This was Virgin, there would be so many people responding to this position. I didn’t think I had a cat in hell’s chance

of getting into the organisation. It would be my pinnacle.” She remembers screaming in Waitrose when they called to offer

her the job. Created by Richard Branson and run by Jean Oelwang, the

former CEO of Virgin mobile in Australia, when Virgin Unite was launched, business was, froma a trust perspective, at an all time low. Virgin was an incredibly entrepreneurial place, but with a belief that business could be a force for good. Despite this philosophy, however, Virgin Unite had a very limited external presence. Springett hit the ground running. A book was written, and a global marketing plan produced to back it up. Brand articulation and message development were created for new global initiatives like the Elders, the Carbon War Room and Energy Saving Trust, and the Branson Centre of Entreprenerulaism was launched in South Africa and the Caribbean.

Awareness boomed, with followers increasing from 40,000, most of whom were staff, to 150,000. It was a furiously fast-paced two years, but suddenly a calm appeared in the vortex, a major change was about to start at Virgin Unite, the bulk of her branding team was about to leave and Ellie Springett realised it was time to join them.

In 2012, she became director of communications (swiftly seeing her role also encompass marketing communications and PR) for ARM Holdings, the global chip design firm.

For some, the idea of this self-evidently social liberal transitioning from the third sector into a comms position at one of the UK’s largest global businesses would appear surprising. But Springett had already given this much thought. “I met people from companies like Unilever during my time at Virgin and their approach was very different. They don’t have a separate foundation, it’s part of the business and it’s therefore actually ingrained within the organisation”.

There are many aspects of ARM that clearly excite Springett. “I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do. I love it here. I love the diversity of people. I love the fact that you can be yourself. I love the fact that differences are respected. I love the impact that we have in the world, and that the management is incredibly humble.”

With most of Springett’s roles the common factor has been inspirational leadership, and at ARM Holdings this was no different. CEO Warren East recently announced his resignation, but to almost everyone who comes into contact with him he is a much-loved boss.

With the wonderment of the recently converted, Springett talks about the achievements and the challenges at Britain’s biggest tech company. It was obvious to ARM that, although she had experience in the tech sector, it was the variety from her background that made it such a perfect match – for both employer and employee. “I said you could probably get someone from HP and they could do a good enough job for you if you want the same as every other tech company, but I am not going to do that. This provides an opportunity for us to do things very differently. We can do some really good corporate reputation work. Let’s not start with the technology first but think about the problems that technology is going to solve.”

As Ellie Springett continues, breathing passion into the ARM story, it seems clear that here is one career journey where the route taken hasn’t been the most obvious, but certainly was the right one. Her career has encompassed charities, agency life and different sectors in the commercial world, and she has added more with each role. It will be interesting to see where and at what her talents will turn to next.