Meet our new Chief People Officer, Clare Alger

At Minerva House, we’ve recently hired Clare Alger as our new Chief People Officer. Clare brings over 21 years of agency-side experience to the role and is brimming with great ideas to further improve our agency culture and offering. Here’s your chance to get to know Clare a bit more…

What attracted you to the Chief People Officer (CPO) role at OMD UK

The most attractive part of the new CPO role was the opportunity to make a difference and evolve our culture to ensure everyone experiences the special and unique OMD experience during their time here. The agency already has a fantastic culture and is at such an exciting stage. I can’t wait to get started and take us to the next level, becoming the agency of choice for people within our industry.

Not surprisingly, another big passion of mine is seeing talent nurture, grow and flourish through innovative learning opportunities and experiences. We have some super smart people at OMD UK and I’m keen to ignite our learning offering further to help everyone here fulfil their ambitions and reach their desired career destination.

What have been your first impressions of the agency?

The people here are amazing; so welcoming, smart, collaborative, real and passionate to the core about growing our people, our clients and our business. The client portfolio is awesome too.

How do you believe an agency’s approach to talent and culture can deliver a competitive advantage?

By attracting, developing and retaining the best, smartest talent in our industry and evolving a truly unique, successful culture to work at, our business will go from strength to strength.

Endless research exists in my profession which concludes how best-in-class talent and cultural initiatives can transform businesses. For example, when executed well, work practices such as flexible working in all its guises drive increased productivity and unleashes creativity. Best-in-class learning and development programmes and a culture of recognition and feedback accelerates personal and professional growth. The equation is simple. The greater commitment and investment (time and money) we place on our talent and culture agenda, the more we will reap the benefits for our business and for our people.

Over the last six months OMD UK saw phenomenal success.  The aim now is to get behind the talent and culture journey and help ensure that 2019 is our best year yet.

What’s your focus going to be in short term?

Firstly, getting to know everyone!

To understand our short to mid-term priorities, we need to fully understand our longer-term ambition for our People and Culture agenda.  If we’re committing to truly becoming the agency of choice in our industry (which we are), we firstly need to articulate the unique employee ‘experience’ we would like everyone to feel during their time as an OMDer.  An experience that is best-in-class, inspirational and full of opportunities to flourish and grow.

To do this, we will need to seek feedback with the help of OMD UK’s Minerva Employee Council and ensure our thinking and ideas around our priorities are relevant and work towards what is important for OMDers, both professionally and personally, when at work and home.

My role here is to help build on the great foundations already in place and to make OMD UK an even better place to work at. To achieve this, I’ll be getting everyone at OMD UK involved in the journey; from brainstorming and championing new cultural initiatives to measuring success, sharing experiences and celebrating successes.

Finally tell us something we don’t know about you!

I love my garden – be assured, when you reach the age of 30 everyone starts to love their garden.  It’s true – you’ll see if you haven’t already.  Nothing quite beats a sunny afternoon in the garden with a glass of wine in hand for ultimate happiness.

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