Judges

Who are the judges?

The Employer Brand Management Awards is judged by a broad range of in-house industry experts in employer branding, internal communications, HR and corporate communications.

Each year we invite the previous year's winners of the 'Best creative execution of the employer brand' and the 'Grand prix' awards to join the panel and these judges fill two agency slots.

 


How does the judging system work?

Scoring is based on a points system and the judges submit these scores anonymously. The judges mark the entries against the criteria mentioned within the entry and information guide: objective, research and planning, creativity and innovation, strategy and implementation and results.

Our judging system is rigorous and fair. If a judge has entered a specific category they will be exempt from reviewing that category, to avoid a conflict of interest.

Winners are determined by the scores they receive and the entries that score high enough will be shortlisted, invited to attend the awards ceremony and awarded with a trophy. If requested, we also provide detailed feedback on agencies’ work after the awards evening, which proves useful for future entries.

 


Interested in joining the panel?

If you are interested in the opportunity to judge and believe you have the necessary background, please email Melanie at melanie.han@cravenhillpublishing.com with a short biography for consideration.

 


Take a look at the esteemed 2024 panel below. More judges will be announced shortly.

Phil Catcheside

Phil Catcheside

Employer brand manager, Nationwide Building Society

Phil's experience in employer branding includes the well recognised names of Network Rail, and now Nationwide where he is the employer brand manager. With previous experience in consumer marketing and in house recruitment, the world of employer brand has felt like a natural and enjoyable evolution in his career.
Outside of work, Phil's energy is firmly rooted in family, fitness and adventure.

Vanessa Ferris

Vanessa Ferris

Global head of internal communications & employer brand, Moove

Vanessa is Global Head of Employer Brand & Internal Communications at Mobility Fintech, Moove. With Moove being a start-up, Vanessa is developing the employee proposition from scratch: from inception, through policy writing, to launch. With a decade of agency experience, Vanessa has expertly crafted employer brands from the ground up for diverse sectors, including Technology, FMCG, Retail, Government, and more, leveraging her commitment to data-driven insights and creative storytelling. A fervent advocate for workplace inclusion, Vanessa has made significant strides as a trained Inclusion Maker, focusing on initiatives to develop female talent and improve representation. Outside of the busy world of start-up culture, Vanessa finds joy adventuring in her campervan.

Michael Ham

Michael Ham

International lead for employer brand and talent attraction, AECOM

With a hybrid career in headhunting, recruitment and digital marketing, Michael has been delivering award winning social media, digital communications, content marketing and employer branding programs across a variety of sectors since 2009. Michael has a passion for real people ‘story telling’ to bring EB and EVP to life, allied to implementing measurable, impactful recruitment marketing and communications strategies and plans to ensure business growth targets are met.


Joining AECOM in 2022, Michael has an international remit for Employer Brand, Recruitment Marketing and TA operations. With nearly 55,000 employees globally, AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm.
Michael is always ‘horizon scanning’ to ensure employer branding initiatives and talent attraction approaches are on point, as well as ensuring optimisation and adoption across TA functions to different markets and cultures. Michael has a passion for the environment, ED&I, and outside of work loves travel, the outdoors, experiencing new cultures and is a consummate ‘foodie’.

Rhian Kiernan

Rhian Kiernan

Global head of employer brand and recruitment marketing, Haleon

Rhian is the Global Head of Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing at Haleon and has specialised in these areas for the past 20+ years. Her career has seen her work over several sectors to include Retail, FMCG, Technology and mobile comms. She has been a RADS judge and part of award-winning teams in the past five years. Rhian’s experience has seen her work across EVP activation, careers site implementation, Recruitment marketing content strategy and early careers attraction.

At Haleon, Rhian leads on the global employer brand and Recruitment Marketing content strategy, candidate attraction which drives brand awareness and communicates key messaging pillars using innovating creative and activation on social channels.

Kornelia Kiss

Kornelia Kiss

Global employer branding manager, TUI

Kornelia is an experienced employer branding professional who worked on brands from small startups to corporations with thousands of colleagues.

Kornelia has joined TUI in 2023 to help launch the company's now award-winning employer brand. Before that she developed and launched the first global employer branding and EVP for global mobility tech company, Flix.

She loves good storytelling and helping people find their voice and courage to tell their authentic stories. She's a techie in disguise who is always interested in new solutions to provide an excellent experience for candidates and colleagues alike.

Münteha Mangan

Münteha Mangan

Chief of employer branding, Turkish Aerospace

Münteha is Chief of Employer Branding at Turkish Aerospace since 2019.  He first met with "Employer Branding" while he was working for a digital employer branding platform in 2008. After 15 years of operations and communications experience including 12 years of mid-level and top-level management experience with a proven success in different functions across several sectors, he is now leading Employer Brand Communications of the sector’s fastest-growing company of Türkiye with a record-breaking and award-winning performance.

Tom Portingale

Tom Portingale

Head of employer brand marketing, Global, RS Group plc

Tom is an accomplished and award-winning communications, brand PR, and marketing professional. Currently serving as the Global Head of Employer Brand Marketing for RS Group, a FSTE-100 global industrial and electrical solutions provider. His expertise spans across highly regulated sectors, including financial services, alcohol and tobacco, showcased through a distinguished career in both the UK and international markets. He also holds an mMBA in Brand Management & is a CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) Accredited PR Practitioner.

Elliott Richards

Elliott Richards

Senior creative copywriter, Tonic Agency

Elliott is not your standard copywriter. His previous experience at Pink Squid and now as a senior copywriter at Tonic, combined with his commercial knowledge from leading account development teams, means he sees both sides of what good looks like. A lover of head-turning creative work that works. And particularly enjoying beautiful simplicity backed by insightful strategy. Previously a judge for the RMAs, he is excited to see this year's entries.

Danny Stacy

Danny Stacy

Head of talent intelligence, UK, Indeed.com

From project management roles within the UK government to consulting for LinkedIn, Danny is now Indeed’s go-to person for telling their story to the market – on stage at events, during industry-wide webcasts and in conference rooms at various companies around the globe.

Indeed are the world's number one job matching platform and Danny shares their story by pairing platform data with industry trend analysis to bring the value of the company’s programs and solutions to life, helping businesses to optimise their recruitment and retention tactics.

Alice Stewart

Alice Stewart

Employer brand manager, EY

Alice is an Employer Brand Manager at professional services firm EY, and leads the employer brand activity for early careers in UK&I. She has a passion for creating engaging content, digital marketing, and using data and insights to deliver successful employer brand campaigns and recruitment marketing activity. Alice has worked on a variety of brand projects across experienced hire and student recruitment and in her current role, enjoys being able to create content to help students learn about their career options in creative and engaging ways.

Marije Van Der Togt

Marije van der Togt

Global employer branding manager, Just Eat Takeaway.com

With over 25 years of experience in various talent brand, people marketing and publishing roles, Marije uses her varied background and expertise to bring together various perspectives within employer branding. She strongly believes in the holistic approach, starting from company reputation and communications, to culture to candidate and employee experience and engagement.

"We use a variety of methods and channels to tell our people's stories, help them be proud of what they accomplish and make sure our colleagues have the opportunity to showcase our culture. We also believe in experiential activations on top of a solid content, advocacy and social strategy. "

Having led teams at several global brands and industries, her in-house employer brand team is always at the heart of everything she does.   "Our team performs well thanks to their varied backgrounds and incredible ability to help each other succeed. Creating a great experience for my team is key as this is what they are selling to our candidates as well."

Outside of work, Marije lives with her husband and two teenage daughters near The Hague in the Netherlands.