12 People of Waterstons - Alison Dent

Alison has worked in professional services organisations for over 25 years, discovering marketing as a career.  Starting out managing events programmes, from small industry focus groups through to regional awards ceremonies around the UK, she joined the northern regional marketing team for one of the big four consultancies, becoming more involved in targeted marketing campaigns and customer experience.

After a short career break to look after family, and heading up the brand experience team for eight years, she wanted to push herself to do something different, but still draw on her skillset, so she became our CSER Lead.

She tells us more about her role and plans for 2024.

“I’ve been struck for some time about how businesses are changing, with a real emphasis being placed on ‘doing well by doing good’, with the challenges brought about by the pandemic, the climate crisis, cost of living crisis and the fast moving geo-political landscapes.

“I’ve always been incredibly proud to work for Waterstons because of its brilliant culture and people, and I know so much fantastic work goes on from a corporate, social and environmental responsibility (CSER) perspective, as our people think it’s the right thing to do which is absolutely the best approach.  My long-term goal is to make sure that this is recognised and rewarded, and becomes firmly embedded into the body of the business; resonating in everything we do and demonstrating to colleagues, clients and other external stakeholders that we’re really committed to working responsibly and supporting our colleagues, communities and our planet - making Waterstons an even more exciting company to work for and do good business with.

“The variation in my role is fantastic; I can be out planting trees with clients one day, organising fundraising activities the next, then attending industry training board events the next! Plus, I get to work across every area of the business which helps me to understand the key areas of interest and passion from every individual.

“My plan for 2024 is to cement our plans around the goal of driving down the digital divide across education, the communities where we work and for our client’s clients. I’d also like to showcase the amazing work that we do in these areas and produce our first dedicated annual report across all our CSER activities.”

If you have ideas for Alison on how to boost, analyse or report our CSER activities, get in touch at alison.dent@waterstons.com