Summary

Kirsty Leighton, MBE, founded Milk & Honey PR in 2017 as a B Corp certified, employee-owned agency that works exclusively with purpose-led organisations doing no harm to people or planet. Now an international firm with offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Munich and Singapore, it has been awarded the King's Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development.

 

Key Points

  • Purpose-led organisations are defined as those doing no harm to people or planet, with Milk & Honey refusing to work with fossil fuel, tobacco or other harmful companies [1:22].
  • The agency achieved B Corp certification in 2019, joining what has grown from 200 to 3,000 UK B Corps, with the certification providing a roadmap for positive impact [2:49].
  • Leighton founded the agency after 20 years in the industry, creating the culture and values first before developing the brand name symbolising shared success [6:46] [7:07].
  • The firm aligns its specialisms with G20 priority areas including clean energy, health, cybersecurity and online safety to ensure long-term commercial viability [8:14] [9:03].
  • As an employee ownership trust, staff are majority shareholders with power to approve or reject business decisions, creating accountability and commercial awareness [25:31] [25:53] [26:09].

 

Transcript

Transcipts are auto-generated.

Kiran Kapur (00:01):
Hello and welcome. We are in the world of PR and communications today, and I'm delighted to welcome Kirsty Leighton, MBE, who is the founder and group CEO of Milk & Honey PR and its parent company, the Hive PR Group. Now, what makes Milk & Honey PR different, apart from the really cute bees that are all over its website, love those, is that it is BCORE certified and it's employee owned. It's also been awarded the King's Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development. It's a very international PR company. It's got offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Munich, and Singapore. So fair to say, quite an international look. In addition to her work at the agency, Kirsty chairs the PRCA management board and in 2026 was honoured by the king with an MBE for services to communications. Kirsty, welcome. It's lovely to have you here. Thank you.

(00:59):
You sound like you are the sort of person with about 17 lives.

Kirsty Leighton (01:02):
Well, yes, but you've just made me sound fabulous, so thank you very much.

Kiran Kapur (01:08):
Before we get into how you founded Milk & Honey, because I suspect that's quite an interesting story, you talk a lot about supporting purpose-led organisations. So what do we mean by purpose-led?

Kirsty Leighton (01:22):
Fundamentally, what we mean is they do no harm to people or planet. So we're signatories of clean creative. We would never work with a fossil fuel company, a tobacco company, or those that do harm to the planet. I mean, clearly every organisation has some sort of heritage where they could have done better, or indeed technology organisations clearly are using a lot of data in marketing ourselves. We're generating data, which in itself is taking up space and arguably melting some ice caps, but we really want to make sure that we're putting our professional expertise to good. So our strap line is be seen, be heard, be good. And we really want to champion those organisations that are really moving the world forward in being kinder, in being more considerate, in thinking about the communities that they work in and being good for the planet.

Kiran Kapur (02:21):
So I think what will fascinate listeners is that you can state that and still have a growing, and as I said, an international business. So we tend to go, "Oh, but I can either grow my business or I can be good." But you are basically here pointing out that you can do both.

Kirsty Leighton (02:39):
Very much so. Absolutely. In fact, if you look at the broader B Corp community, that's been going for about 15 years now. It started in the US and has grown quite considerably there. And it came over to the UK probably about 10 years or so ago now. It was relatively slow start. We got our accreditation back in 2019, and at the time I think we were within the first 200 B Corps in the UK, there's now 3000. So that really does go to show that there's an awful lot of organisations, companies, and indeed leaders who are committed to doing things better. And it's that kind of nudge of continual improvement of what better looks like. And what's great about the whole B Corp community is it actually gives you something of a map to follow in terms of what you can do to make an active positive impact in five key areas.

(03:32):
So it's really helpful. But that actually, I would suggest that being a bit more specialised there, being an organisation and a group of individuals who commit to those values and live by them has actually made us more sought out than it has narrowed the field for us.

Kiran Kapur (03:51):
That's really interesting. So you founded Milk and Honey PR back in 2017. What made you decide to develop... Well, I suppose it's two things. What made you decide to develop an agency and then why in this particular direction?

Kirsty Leighton (04:05):
Well, I mean, just taking perhaps a step further backwards, both my parents owned their own businesses and they were both incredibly intelligent, hugely hardworking, but bless their hearts, not an ounce of commerciality between the pair of them. So every couple of years we moved to a slightly smaller house and they just worked incredibly hard, but they just took everything on a handshake. They didn't necessarily have processes in place and they didn't necessarily fully understand commercialisation. And I think whatever you work in, it's a job. And so therefore understanding where the money comes from is of critical importance. And it's just as important for communications professionals to understand where the money comes from as it does for the bean counters. So I never really wanted to work for myself. I always though, oh no, go and take the safe corner office somewhere and work for somebody else.

(04:57):
Get that steady pay-check, get that steady holiday coming through, be protected. But actually after, God, some 20 odd years of working for somebody else, and in lots of cases in quite some grownup roles where I was MD or global head of, I still didn't really get to be the one to make decisions, especially about policy and about what it was that we stood for and which clients we would or wouldn't work for and what behaviours, perhaps more importantly, we would and would not tolerate. And so it came to a stage where I was working for a wonderful agency called Hudson Sandler, who at the time was owned by a holding company and they were doing a management buyout where they were buying out from under the organisation. At the time it was a specialist capital markets and financial PR agency. And I though, actually, you know what?

(05:47):
I started off in tech, then into consumer, then into corporate, then into digital. Then I was working in financial and capital markets, which is great. It's really helpful to understand all of the different audiences that you're communicating to, what they need to know and what they don't need to know quite frankly. I made a decision in my own head that I didn't want to commit to just one audience. So I though, okay, well now maybe is the time to do something on my own because I felt like I kind of run the gambit of working for a lot of the big agencies, international, independence and owned. And it was beginning to feel a bit samey for me. And I wanted to work somewhere that was nice, where people were nice to each other, where everyone's voice was heard, where the clients were kind to you.

(06:34):
And if they weren't, you could sack them, where you could agree to a behavioural code of conduct upfront with everybody that you're working to so you could hold one another to account. And I just thought that sounded wonderful. And so I started thinking about, well, what could that look like? So actually, before I even came up with a name or started the agency, I came up with the culture, what I wanted it to feel like, what the values were that were going to drive that behaviour and therefore what would be rewarded on the back of those behaviours. And then from there started thinking about brand. And that's where I got milk and honey from. Again, it's this idea of this kind of shared success, kind of a road to nirvana paved with gold where everyone can share in the successes. I thought that sounds really lovely.

(07:23):
And then we can also play with the idea of the core of the brand nurturing that, being the milk to nurture that, and then adding the gloss and the special kind of creative sprinkle with some more of the honey type of idea. So I got a bit overexcited about that. So we refer to ourselves internally as the hive and we've all got little kind of B icons that we use internally. So we have a little bit of fun.

Kiran Kapur (07:53):
You do make it sound fun. So you came up with the culture and then realised that you could have an organisation that was for organisations that were purpose led.

Kirsty Leighton (08:04):
Yes.

Kiran Kapur (08:05):
And you obviously do a lot in the sustainable development side. You've just won the King's Award for enterprise for it. How did you develop that specialism?

Kirsty Leighton (08:14):
Well, actually, Kieran, it's not as specialised as you might originally think. So if you think about it more in the broader area of beyond sustainability, more into, okay, organisations that are enriching, they're enriching society, community, the environment. Actually, it starts expanding out quite considerably. I then was focused on, okay, well, what's the G20 doing? What are the key areas that they really want to solve for globally? So these are areas for making access to funding more democratised, ensuring that cybersecurity is higher up everyone's agenda, making sure that women's health and general health is something that, again, is higher up the agenda. And so actually from there, there was kind of five key areas around clean energy, green energy, around clean cities, around health and wellbeing and around online safety that started to provide us opportunities to build up our portfolio. But more than that, knowing they were aligned to the G20, then you know there is going to be investment funding that's going into that space.

(09:34):
You know that there is going to be judicial support, both from a regulatory for non-performance as well as easing the way and facilitating greater access and infrastructure around those areas that'll come not only from one particular political community, but actually globally. That then starts allowing you to build something out really in a quite meaningful long-term manner rather than just thinking what's hot right now.

Kiran Kapur (10:03):
This comes back to your original thing about you've got to be commercial. Yes, you want to be purposeless, you want to do things, but that's quite a hard-headed commercial. Oh, if I go in with the G20 stuff, there will be money behind it.

Kirsty Leighton (10:16):
Kieran, to be honest with you, we work with everybody from the UN to sex toys, so it's quite a wide space.

Kiran Kapur (10:24):
Okay. I think you are the first person I've had on the podcast talking about sex toys.

Kirsty Leighton (10:30):
Sexual health and wellbeing is important.

Kiran Kapur (10:34):
Yes. It's not often somebody completely throws me in my own podcast, but I have to say that one went for me. My next question was actually going to be if there was a specific project that you find particularly interesting working on, but I'm now slightly nervous of asking.

Kirsty Leighton (10:49):
Please don't, please don't. So I think where you are able to make the biggest difference is where really the team and myself get very emotional about things. So where you're able to change some law, where you are able to meaningfully change somebody's life in a manner that's helpful is particularly great. So for example, we work with Make-A-Wish for a number of years, and that is about, it's a not-for-profit organisation that is looking to support children and young adults who are coming to the end of their lives. They have terminal conditions, and it's really giving them their kind of wish and helping that come true through charity activities. And so again, the work that we were able to do there in terms of putting on really exciting events that were going to draw international eyeballs and wallet opening opportunities was fantastic. So we've done some great work there.

(11:44):
We worked with the UN on their humanity drive where it was looking again, and we were running campaigns around songs that really spoke to you and made a difference in your life. And again, we were able to run some brilliant campaigns off the back of that. We work with November year in, year out, which is the men's cancer charity as well. But then we also do lots of other fun things. So we work with Santa School every year, which is about helping to recruit and to train up Santa's helpers around London so that they can all sign appropriately. They know how to represent Santa and his values. And so we have fun campaigns. So last year it was all about the sense of smell and how smells can be evocative and we've got some wonderful coverage. And this year we've got a very exciting campaign, which I have to stay shtum about at the moment.

(12:37):
But yeah, so it really changes. That said, I'm making it sound like we do an awful lot of projects. I would still say the vast majority of our work, 80% plus, is retained, and we've got clients that I'm delighted to say that we've worked for since the very beginning. In fact, our very, very first client almost 10 years ago now is still a client with us today. So that's great to be part of that as well, where we're fundamentally working with the leadership team to help them navigate what's important to them. And so we don't really start with a PR brief then. They come to us with their business plan and say, okay, can you help us reflect the communication goals that we need to put in place and design some programmes around that that's going to make a difference? And sometimes it's measured by the typical AMAC measurement framework that you would anticipate.

(13:24):
And other times we're measured on how their valuation is increasing or how they're able to onboard and to have high engagement rates from new leaders. So again, it's very, very much aligned to their business goals. I

Kiran Kapur (13:42):
Think that's really interesting because often when you talk, when I talk to students about PR communications, they think quite correctly to some extent that it's all about wordsmithing, but there's also so much more that goes behind it. And as you say, again, there have to be goals at the end of it. It's no good producing the world's most beautiful copy. And I speak as someone who learned this the hard way in the early stage of the career. Here is beautiful copy, yes, but there's no call to action, but the call to action will ruin my beautiful copy, but that's not really the point. So I think it's really interesting that you are pushing the fact that the communications that you are creating are aiming to do different things, but they're being measured on those things.

Kirsty Leighton (14:23):
Exactly. So I mean, to my mind, and I've been playing this game for 30 odd years now, public relations, the clue's in the name. It's about building and maintaining relationships with your publics. And those are both internal publics and external, as well as through endorsed channels, be that academia, be that the media, be that politicos. And it's direct and indirect. So it could be where you're having direct conversations or direct communication with those individuals almost on a one-on-one through to mass communication that is organised through media. So public relations has never been shorthand for press releases or for just comms. It really is about the relationship building, which goes far beyond that. And it's as much about protecting brand reputation and holding things back and correcting them when they're wrong as it is about promotion.

Kiran Kapur (15:19):
That's very interesting. We'll come back to that one in a second. I wanted to query something. You used the phrase endorsed channels.

Kirsty Leighton (15:25):
So for me, endorsed channels would be anybody who is advocating on your behalf. So that could be earned media. It could be working with independent content creators, influencers, where they're not just pushing out the material that you sent to them, but they're putting their own take on it. And so they're therefore advocating and endorsing for you in a public arena.

Kiran Kapur (15:50):
Brilliant. Thank you. So why did you say that PR could be as much about correcting things and protecting the brand?

Kirsty Leighton (15:55):
Well, because very much, especially in crisis communications, in investor communications and in capital markets work, it's about really making sure that you don't necessarily want everything that is happening or is potentially perceived by somebody else to be newsworthy, to be out in the broader environment. So it's about protecting the brand. And so there's a whole suite of work that goes underway whenever we start a programme. So first off is starting with the messaging. How do you want to be seen? To whom? And what behavioural response do you want from them? Do you want greater engagement? Do you want to initiate an angry response? Do you want them to go out and buy something? Do you want them to vote in a particular way? What is the behavioural response that you want from that audience? And then what are the processes and measurement infrastructures that you can put in place to make sure that that's happening so that you can constantly be asking yourself that question?

(16:54):
And then everything beyond that is about correcting your messaging and the vehicles that you're using to deliver those messages to ensure that your goals are being met.

Kiran Kapur (17:05):
And then presumably measuring and making certain that you're on track and then adjusting as you need

Kirsty Leighton (17:09):
To. Constantly. And in today's universe, obviously the way that a lot of the algorithms are feeding information, it used to be the case back in the day when I was a young exec, if you got something on the BBC, you felt fantastic about it because most of the world saw the same thing on the BBC. It is not the case now. The algorithm will send BBC stories to me and feed them up to me in a completely different way than it'll feed them up to you depending on what you've read before, where your interest lies, et cetera, et cetera. And so again, you have to be really sensitive to who are you talking to and what do you want them to do, but it has made measurements so, so much easier because it's wholly trackable now in a way that it didn't used to be.

(17:55):
So that is much, much easier.

Kiran Kapur (17:58):
And you obviously have a very international perspective and said you've got offices around the world.

Kirsty Leighton (18:02):
Yes.

Kiran Kapur (18:03):
How different is it in the different offices? Are there different ways that you have to think about communications?

Kirsty Leighton (18:10):
Very much so. And again, it depends on the client that you're working for. So for example, there are parts of the communication spectrum like ethical pharmaceutical, for example, where there are regulatory restrictions about what can and can't be said in different countries. And so you've got to be sensitive to that. But from a kind of a broader sweeping perspective, obviously the national vibe, the regional identity and belief changes wildly from one part of a country to another, nevermind different countries altogether. And then of course add into that different languages and different social cues and different accepted norms. And so as I'm sure you are very, very aware, even between the UK and the US where we have a shared language, the way that we use that language and what we mean by it is very different. And what would be said in a kind of a sarcastic fashion that would be understood by Brits to be so, would be read in a completely different way by the American cousins.

(19:18):
That said, the media's different as well in terms of how they accept information, how they want to receive information, how questioning they are. So for example, in the US, it's a lot more news driven. There's more opinion opportunities probably from a European perspective. I would say that the French media, for example, are much more open to receiving information simultaneously and then having a discussion behind it, whereas the UK are all about exclusives. The UK media will question you into a cocked hat. They will never blindly accept anything. But then again, that's reflected, I think, in how the media is perceived, and that's just from a media perspective. And so it rolls out with politicos and the like as well, because again, there's different regulations for and accepted norms on how and when and with whom you can communicate.

Kiran Kapur (20:13):
That was such a brilliant insight into just how complicated international communications can be. And we think, oh, well, it's easy. I just say what I say it, but it's not like that at all.

Kirsty Leighton (20:25):
Which is one of the, again, coming back to one of the first things that I think any communicator would do when they're opening up a relationship or they're rethinking how an audience or a new audience is about to receive their brand, or indeed if there's new competitors coming into the space, again, thinking about how you are creating that point of differentiation, which is what are your USPs? What is the key messaging that you want to deliver? And then that you would rather hope to stay the same irrespective of which territory or indeed which segment of the audience you were speaking to. But then the data points that you would use to back it up, and then the colourful human story that you would use to bring it to life would all be culturally sensitive to or relevant to the audiences that you were talking to so that the key message would remain the same, but the evidence and the story to bring it to life would be specific to the audience that you were speaking to because otherwise it just doesn't resonate.

(21:24):
It doesn't mean anything to them.

Kiran Kapur (21:25):
Yes, yes. And that makes huge sense. So one of the things I wanted to ask you was which of your PR skills you found most useful for sustainability comms, but I think you're going to tell me everything is useful.

Kirsty Leighton (21:37):
Do you know what? I wouldn't necessarily strip out sustainability comms from any other form of communications. I think one of the first things that I wanted to do when I set up Milk and Honey in the first instance was I didn't want to specialise by any particular sector, which by some can be seen as a mistake. For me, two things. Number one, I get bored very easily and actually I find it really interesting to just keep up with what's happening in lots of different sectors. And you can get an idea of something that's happening in manufacturing that all of a sudden could be really interesting to be talking to retail clients about or something that's happening in over the counter pharmaceutical that is having an impact on health tech development, for example. So there's always things that you can borrow and bring across. And so the ability to distil things down to the core, so to create those key messages, that's the same across everything that you're doing.

(22:38):
You are distilling down who an organisation is, who an individual is, what their core beliefs and values are so that you can then build it up and build stories and campaigns around that that's creating the relevance to the audience. So it doesn't really change. So again, being able to act as a bit of a magpie, taking lots of ideas from different organisations and indeed from different sectors and different countries and bringing them together and using them as inspiration for a new way of thinking about an opportunity is always exciting.

Kiran Kapur (23:16):
What do you most often see organisations getting things wrong, particularly if we're trying to communicate a purpose? Is there such a thing as purpose washing, like greenwashing?

Kirsty Leighton (23:25):
Oh gosh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And as I'm sure your listeners are hugely aware, there's a whole range of new regulation that's come in, especially here in Europe, but actually affects things internationally. That effectively means that any kind of green or clean claims have to be backed up. And if not, you can lose up to 3% of your revenue in fines. So it's a big no-no. It's the same through anything. You have to back it up, prove what you're saying. And that's a great thing about public relations versus say advertising or other forms of paid for marketing is that you do have to verify absolutely everything that you say. And in today's rather sceptical age of greenwashing, of dis and misinformation, of AI slop that's out there, then again, making sure that you're saying something meaningful that's cutting through and that is honest and provable is of critical importance.

(24:27):
So for example, let me give you an example. When I was thinking about milk and honey, one of the things that I really wanted to drive through was respect. And I'm sure if you asked 10 different people what respect meant for them, they would come back with different answers. But it's something you can't say about yourself. You can't say you're respectful. You can't say you're successful. It's something other people have to say about you. So when I was looking for evidence of, well, how do we prove that we're respectful rather than just say it because it's just an empty claim otherwise, that's where we came across our BCOR opportunity and realising actually that is a great way of demonstrating that we're holding ourselves to the highest level of ethical, environmental, and social reporting and being as transparent as we needed to be. When we were looking at collaboration and saying, okay, well again, everybody likes to think that they're collaborative, whether they are or they're not.

(25:24):
And so when we were looking at that, it was like, okay, well, how do we make this tactile? How do we cement it? And that's where we came across the EOT structure, so the employee ownership trust infrastructure. And that's great because... So for those that don't know, employee ownership is something that the government brought in in the UK in about 2014, so it's been around for quite a while now, but there's not that many organisations that are employee owned. I think John Lewis would probably be the biggest example that everybody would know and understand, but it's where the employees are the majority shareholders. So to be part of an employee ownership trust, the employees need to be the dominant shareholder, so they have to have more than 50%. So fundamentally, what does that mean? It means that everyone has a voice, that the team can undo things that they don't believe in.

(26:18):
It means that management has to hold itself accountable to the teams because they are the majority shareholders. It means that they need to sign off on business plans and any kind of changes in direction. And so for me, what's great about it is it means that if I can't sell the idea to the team, it's probably not a great idea, so let's not do it. So there's a safety catch there. It means that everyone's bought into it, and so the whole team is then kind of pushing in the same direction, which is fantastic and makes a big difference. But it also means that we've got really committed and far more commercially aware team because they pay attention to what's happening, not only in the P&L, but on the balance sheet, and they want to understand what the cashflow forecasting looks like, and we share all of that with them monthly.

(27:10):
So it's not just about how the business is performing, but also it allows us to make longer term decisions. So you're not just trying to keep shareholders happy quarter to quarter, you are keeping employees on board and engaged and contributing hopefully year on year as their career flourishes.

Kiran Kapur (27:32):
Brilliant. As we sort of come towards the end, I know there will be people listening going, "Wow, I really want a career in PR now," either because I'm at the beginning of my career or because I'm partway through and actually I'm thinking, "I went the wrong route. I want to go into PR now." Is there some advice that you could give? I mean, where does one even start?

Kirsty Leighton (27:51):
Well, so number one, I would say it is a brilliant career. It is super fun. It uses all sorts of different skills, and you don't need to be one personality type. Across the industry, we try really hard to make sure that we're attracting introverts, extroverts, thinkers, feelers, creatives, writers, publicists, editors, all sorts of different skills and backgrounds. So I would richly encourage anyone into a career in communications. I think it's great fun. I would say it's as much about spreadsheets as it is about the written word, so be prepared for that. But I think any kind of form of business, you've got to be paying attention to the numbers as well as what is being said and written. When I started in PR, I went to PR Week and they produce a list of, in the UK, the top 150 agencies in the UK and internationally in the US, the top 250 international agencies.

(28:58):
I wrote to all of them. They all said, "Sod off." I wrote back to them and said, "Surely you don't mean that." And that one pushback got me 15 interviews and 10 job offers. And it just goes to show that is what we're asked to do in our job every day is to win people over. And so if you take the first no as a no, and you're not necessarily going to succeed, you need to grow a bit of a tougher skin and be ready for some knockbacks. But again, I would say that's true in any business environment. So that's a great place to start for just who the players are. I would then say both the CIPR and indeed the PRCA are great providers of information on benchmarking material in terms of the happiest places to work, ethical and gender pay gap reporting for all of the agencies in the country and around the world, what sets them apart.

(29:53):
Glassdoor is great for going in and understanding what individuals are writing about their employee That's not one of their owned channels, so they don't get to control that. But there's an awful lot of brilliant information out there. And I would say what we are trying to do within our job is to break through and stand out. And so that's what you need to do when you're approaching people. So for example, I probably get, and we're a small agency, we're less than 50 people worldwide, but I probably get just me, about 10 CVs through a day, which if we're not recruiting just kind of goes into an empty email. And to be honest, we then have to auto delete them for GDPR anyway. So number one, I would say do not attach a CV and do not attach a letter, which is probably what universities are telling you to do because attachments never get opened and the spam filter will more often than not from an unknown email won't let it get through.

(30:51):
So do something to stand out. So a couple of the things that's really stood out in the past was somebody went onto company's house, got my home address, sent me a big box. This helium balloon arrived saying, "Love what you do. We should get together." And then as the helium balloon floated up, there was an engagement ring that they mocked up with their CV through it. So I thought that was very cool. And she got the job. And another time there was a young man who sat in our reception and refused to go away and he had rewritten his CV specifically in the way that our website was written, except he'd put all of his skills and insight alongside that. So it was very, very bespoke. And then we've had other people that have said that their one and only agency that they wanted to work for was milk and honey.

(31:43):
And so they put their energy and effort into it and they got the job. So spamming things out is not a worker. I keep reading these very sad posts about poor individuals that have sent out 150, 250 CVs. And I'm like, "Don't do that. We all get spam." It comes across that way. And so it never goes anywhere. So please, please don't do that.

Kiran Kapur (32:09):
Kirsty Leighton, MBE, thank you so much. I think anyone listening to you can hear your enthusiasm, your excitement, your passion, and that obviously comes through the work that you do. Thank you so much for your time and expertise.

Kirsty Leighton (32:22):
Wonderful speaking to you. Thank you so much.