WHAT DOES THE BPA STAND FOR?
BPA stands for Birmingham Publicity Association. Which all sounds terribly old-fashioned. It’s no surprise really considering the BPA has existed in some form or other since the 1930s. It became ‘official’ in 1946 with its inaugural Annual General Meeting. We tend not to use our full name these days. The BPA is much snappier! The B stands for Birmingham. The rest is up to you.
Birmingham for People in Advertising (Media & Marketing)?
Birmingham’s Party Animals?
Or maybe you have a better idea? What the BPA really stands for is…
Bringing people in media, marketing and advertising together in a social setting, championing the city of Birmingham, and supporting deserving local charities.
Member organisations include global operations to sole traders, graduate trainees right up to CEOs and MDs. Media owners and agencies, advertising and marketing agencies, digital agencies, PR agencies, freelancers. In fact, all facets of the media, marketing and advertising industries are represented in our membership.
Leadership Team
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Selena Higgins-McCarron
Co-Chair
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Steve Price
Co-Chair
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Emma Bowen
Charity Liaison Officer
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Sarah Burnett
Events
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Nigel Clarke
Official Print Supplier
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Ben Edwards
Digital marketing
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Claire Fry
PR & Content
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Kieron Judge
Membership & Partnerships
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Kuro Onwuteaka
Digital Marketing
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Emma Russell
Events & Partnerships
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Orla Sweeney
Administration & Membership
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Gustavo Tovar
Creative
Member
Organisations
Our charity for 2022-2024 is
Winston’s Wish
We're proud to help them to support grieving children and young people after the death of someone important.
Membership makes the BPA work. By joining the organisation, you are ensuring its longevity, supporting the media, marketing and advertising industries and providing valuable resources to deserving charities.
The Jo Harrington Fund
Charity is a huge part of what we do at the BPA. Every Christmas, we donate thousands of pounds to deserving local charities.
Over the years we have raised valuable funds for the likes of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Promise Dreams, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity, LoveBrum, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and many, many more great causes.
This annual charity purse is named in honour of a great friend and supporter of the BPA – The Jo Harrington Fund.
We were honoured to have Jo supporting us at the BPA for over ten years. She will always be thought of as a talented, fun, outgoing, fearless and adventurous woman and we are all blessed to be have been able to call her our friend.
Starting her career at Mirror Group in the newspaper game, Jo built a fierce reputation in the media industry as a tenacious seller – routinely smashing targets for the likes of GCap, BRMB, FreeRadio, Capital, Exterion and Global.
Her reputation for being one of the hardest partiers around also preceded her.
Throughout all her years with the BPA she worked tirelessly to help create fabulous events, helping us to raise thousands of pounds for charity and always being the first to pop open the champagne. Jo also wore the chain and wielded the gavel as BPA Chair from 2013 to 2015.
Sadly, on Sunday 18th October 2020, Jo Harrington passed away after a short but brave battle with cancer. We choose to remember her with every pound we donate, by doing it in Jo’s name.
