Our first new talent hire

Firstly, Luke Allsop has joined us as an Account Executive. Luke is our first graduate hire in Mantis’ history and is picking up his 2:1 in Journalism from University of West England [UWE] tomorrow. We are huge believers that a business cannot grow its service offering or support its more senior team members without adding emerging talent. Luke has talent by the bucket-load, and some sort of pre-loaded gravitas and calm programme that left me almost confused at interview.

As standard, we took him to his first new client kick off meeting early in his first week. By the end of the week he was placing coverage as if he’d been hiding in our cupboard and listening for years. I can’t wait to see what he produces in the coming months.

At, Mantis, we work to standards of a much larger agency, which cuts both ways because we want to produce professional, credible team members who have rounded experience and whom clients adore. So, Luke is patient zero for our graduate/AE programme. If you’re interested in becoming the next in line, get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.

A permanent Bristol office

The addition of Luke makes three of us in the Bristol area, so the natural progression was to be able to work together when we want to. If you know Mantis, you’ll know none of us are chained to our desks, so our new, centrally located workspace is somewhere we get together several times a week, and our other South-West based colleagues can join us too. With the South-East team doing the same at our Paddington office, things are looking very rosy.

The new location has already produced the formation of our lunchtime fitness squad. Ask Luke about skipping, that’s all I’m saying. We’re also going to be doing some ‘walking meetings’ – something I talk a lot about in spokesperson training; the principle of being side by side not face to face, to harmonise a conversation. Luke and I met the below beast on our last foray to the park for a chat on learning modules. Never a dull day in Bristol.