Trading letters for numbers: CCGroup’s Amber Ellis on embracing diversity with data

Give her a blank word document and Amber Ellis, senior account executive at CCGroup, a Hoffman agency, will take on the challenge. But, if you give Ellis a spreadsheet, she can build a department from the ground up.

In 2016, she was applying for and considering a range of different university courses — fashion design, forensic sciences and film studies. Ellis was eventually swayed into a PR degree by her father, who organised a quick hello with his company’s external PR agency.

“I just kind of was like ‘okay, I'll give it a go’ so I applied to Bournemouth University,” says Ellis. “I saw that they didn't do exams for the PR course,” she laughs, but adds that her dyslexia makes exams difficult. “I hate exams. I don’t want to do any exams,” she insists.

She attended the university in 2018 just as it was integrating advertising, PR and social media into one course.

Ellis says this was advantageous as it reflected the demands of a modern PR agency, “it actually worked out really well, because that seems to be the trajectory a lot of agencies are taking now, rather than only doing PR”.

Analysing the situation

She left with a first class honours marketing degree in 2022 and immediately went to work at CCGroup, thanks to an introduction to the agency by her lecturer.

But, while Ellis has always been vocal about her dyslexia and neurodiversity, she had a moment of doubt.

“During my degree I was so nervous that I was going to spend all day, every day writing. That's not my strong suit. and I was terrified,” she admits.

Fortunately, she threw herself into life in PR, as she rationalised that her degree equipped her with skills in social and advertising, “I was like, ‘yeah okay’, even if PR doesn’t work out, I have experience in those other sectors, it’ll be fine”.

Words were not her safe space, but within her first two weeks at CCGroup, she was offered the opportunity to train on data analytics.

“It launched its own department with my colleague Matt, and I which was four months in the making. We did a year of training and the last four months was all about how we can create it as an offering, package it up and make it useful to clients.

“It's still changing so much. We constantly get time to test our tools [based on] feedback from clients. Now that we've been acquired by Hoffman, it means we've got a much wider client base that we can talk to about data and analytics, which is really exciting.

“I’m also part of the AI team. I have done a few panel sessions for the PRCA on AI and comms…it was really good and there's always such great networking moments.”

Counting on others

Ellis says this networking “snowballed” into mini things that have been “going on in the background”, but that she has also worked with CCGroup’s head of content Alan XXX on her anxiety around writing.

“We are constantly talking about my progress with writing, he reviewed a lot of my content and said that I have improved because of the training I have done. I just wanted to get the fundamentals of my writing to a better standard, and it has been really useful to have that space to say, ‘hey, someone else can help me’.”

This is not the only area where CCGroup has helped Ellis embrace her strengths as a neurodiverse PR professional, as she will even videocall with colleagues to body double — a tactic to maintain focus on a task by having someone in the room or completing the same task — both in the office and virtually, to stay on track.

Speaking of the agency as a whole, Ellis says: “There's no snobbiness because we have so many neurodivergent people, we are so used to everyone having quirks.

“I’m on the autistic spectrum, I’m a woman who is mixed and there’s so much intersectionality. Everyone in the agency has an intersection in some way. There’s no space for anything else [but acceptance].

“Considering I did really bad at maths in school, I did not expect to be coming in and then within a year launching a data and analytics program. That was not where I saw my trajectory going. I didn't even see myself in tech PR.

“I really thought I was going to be in fashion, and that's how I saw my future. I love working in fintech. I didn't even know it existed before I started, and I love it now.”

A bit about me

Ellis now works with Whataboutisms, a network designed for people just starting out in their PR and comms careers. The CPD accredited group runs free panel sessions on a wealth of topics, such as the death of print and whether DEI was just a stunt. it has a programme of upcoming events on the way.

“It’s just a nice vibe. It's people coming together from all different areas of the industry, whether it's advertising journalism, PR or social media. We have university students that travel in for an event, which usually consists of a panel session, drinks and nibbles. It’s just really fun, and we’re building something where people can make friends with people from different agencies.”