Naomi Day, an Account Manager at PLMR Genesis, is taking part in a two-week secondment with Germany PR agency, navos, who specialise in communications for the energy sector. The secondment is part of a Leadership Exchange Programme offered by the Global Communications Alliance (GCA), a network of like-minded independent agencies that provide integrated communications services the clients around the world.

Following the first week of her secondment, she shares her experiences.

I was delighted to have been chosen to take part in this two-week secondment with navos, and what an experience it’s been already!

After a long day of travelling, having got up at 4:30am to make it on time for my flight, I arrived in Berlin and headed straight to navos’ office. There I was greeted with a very warm welcome from the team and taken on a tour of the office which features lots of big open spaces for collaborative working, as well as some brand-new pods which are perfect for when you need some quiet time on a call – something many of us often need these days!

Day two saw the start of my jam-packed programme of activities where myself and a colleague headed to the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung annual conference titled ‘Reshape Europe: for a resilient and sovereign EU in a New World Order’. The focus of the conference was around European challenges and how it can become more adaptable to address these. The conference was held in a beautiful building next to the Bradenburg Gate, named AXICA Kongress – apparently often used for political meetings as its very close to the German parliament building.

During the week I learned more about some of navos’ clients and also attended a client meeting with a large global energy company, where I learnt more about its approach to the challenges it faces around community and stakeholder engagement. The meeting was held in the client’s impressive new building which is 95% sustainable and the most sustainable building of its size in the whole of Germany.

navos doesn’t just operate in Berlin though, the team also has offices in Dusseldorf and Hamburg and I had the pleasure of visiting the Hamburg offices during my first week. The team was very welcoming and provided me with a great opportunity to explore the city while I was there, including a team lunch followed by a boat trip around the port of Hamburg just as the sun was going down.

We also visited the offices of Jung von Matt (JVM) – shareholders of navos – who specialise in marketing communications. There we were shown the ‘bubble verse’ which is a literal bubble which you step inside to view tailored user selections based on various algorithms. It was a great way to look at various target audiences across the whole of Germany and be able to see in real time which channels they are using, the content they are watching, what music they are listening to and so much more.

I have learnt so much during my first week and it has been such a valuable experience already – now to find out what my second week will bring!