Alison Theaker has over thirty years of experience in the PR industry as a practitioner, academic and author. She has taught public relations, marketing and management in the UK and US at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She ran her own business coaching practice for small businesses, www.thesparkuk.com for fifteen years and is now developing courses and resources for women, men and organisations around menopause at www.livelifeforme.org.
Previously she was the first Head of Education at the then Institute of Public Relations, responsible for the development of the CIPR's Diploma and Advanced Certificate, the launch of the first CPD scheme for the PR industry in Europe, and setting up and revising frameworks for Approved Courses and Approved Trainers. She worked on the Chartered Manager BA apprenticeship and the Senior Leader MBA apprenticeship programmes at Plymouth University for five years until early 2024. She has also been an associate lecturer at Cardiff University on the MA in Communications.
Alison is a Fellow of the CIPR and has delivered research papers at conferences in the UK, US and Australia on team working in PR, improving students' writing skills and the future of PR as a profession. She was awarded an MPhil at the University of Bath in 2023 on the role of mentoring for women entrepreneurs in a rural context.
Her textbook The Public Relations Handbook, is used as a core text on most of the PR degree courses in the UK. She is currently revising this for the 7th edition which will be published in 2025.