Robert Minton-Taylor descibes his day as a global media relations manager at Wallenius Wilhelmsen

Robert Minton-Taylor spent 30 years working for Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics, a Scandinavian automotive logistics and shipping company where he was the company’s global media relations manager. He now combines his main role as an associate senior lecturer at Leeds Business School part of Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom with his communications consultancy practice, Minton-Taylor Consultancy, specialising in issues management and international media relations for the automotive, logistics and shipping industries. Here he describes a typical day from his recent time at Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics.

My Day

6.30am: No day is normal. When I am not teaching at the Leeds Business School, and while working for a Scandinavian shipping company acting as global media relations manager, I awake at this time to listen to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

7.00am: I snatch some breakfast and then I begin reading in earnest. If you work in corporate media relations you need to implicitly understand what the news media write about and how they write it.

I generally read, although scan is probably a more apt word, The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal Europe or The International Herald Tribune (to get an American perspective). I also read a whole host of shipping, logistics and automotive trade journals. Reading these publications in print – as well as online – gives a sense of the importance the media outlet has given to a particular story.

Working from my purpose-built home office I have stunning views of the Yorkshire Dales. BBC Radio 4 is switched on in the background. There are some great programmes like Four Corners, which deals with world issues.

8.00am: Any calls I need to make to Asia, for example, Singapore, China and Japan, are made at around now.

9.00am: I do a round of calls to European hub ports such as Southampton, Zeebrugge, and Gothenburg. I also call the country managers of Russia and South Africa to gain updates on business trends, any unusual cargoes being shipped, and contracts won, etc.

10.00am: I call the news desks of the globally respected shipping papers, Lloyd’s List, Fairplay International Shipping Weekly and TradeWinds and analogous titles like Automotive Logistics to check on what is happening on the news agenda that would be of benefit to WWL.

11.00am: Call the company’s corporate HQ in Oslo to give feedback on stories that are likely to impact on the business.

11.30am: Research ideas for press releases or features and see if I can feed in a story idea to a news editor or persuade an editor to run a feature on an issue affecting shipping, such as climate change.

1.00pm: I break off to have lunch and watch BBC’s excellent current affairs programme, World At One and check BBC News 24 too.

2.30pm: I start putting in calls to the United States to check out what is happening on the East Coast.

5.00pm: I listen to Radio 4’s PM programme and make my final calls of the day to Stockholm before it wraps up the working day.

7.30pm: Break for dinner, watch my favourite TV soaps and try and take in News At Ten and current affairs programmes like Question Time and Newsnight before making calls to my colleagues and journalists in Australia at around 11.00pm. At around midnight I crawl into bed.

Robert Minton-Taylor recently won the John Richman Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding services to the industry by the UK-based Seahorse Club, the European shipping and logistics society.