Last year in review | The Giles Agency

Last year was a huge year for us. At the end of 2017 we said goodbye to our old moniker of Giles Publications and blossomed into The Giles Agency, making 2018 our first full year under our new identity — and what a year it was!

First up came our new website. Keeping your online presence cutting-edge and ahead of the curve is one of the hardest things to do in modern business. As our wonderful founder Freya explained in a ‘Talk from the Top’ post in January 2018, “One morning I woke up and realised our website looked dated. One day it was current, the next it was old-fashioned. We consider ourselves fairly traditional here at Giles… but traditional doesn’t mean outdated. Something had to be done.” Our new site is streamlined, easy to navigate, and aesthetically pleasing, while also highlighting some of the key figures in our team. We couldn’t be more pleased – and we aim never to be outdated again.

We started the year delivering fantastic annual and sustainability reports for clients, and have worked on a hugely diverse portfolio of projects throughout the year: brochures, websites, app copy, articles, blog posts, thought leadership, social media, training, writing, editing, and translation at all levels, and far more. We’re excited to tackle even more of this in the year ahead. (Maybe we can work together? Contact us!)

One of the biggest updates came in the form of our online training courses. In September, we launched our ‘Write to the Top’ packages, which combine convenience and tailor-made options to give our clients the best possible comms experience – from the comfort of their own office. These courses teach attendees how to make their writing as effective as possible, get the results they want, and go further, faster in their careers. They have proven to be very successful; we’ve been lucky enough to meet and train a wide variety of clients. We hope 2019 will be even more successful, allowing us the opportunity to strengthen and develop communications skills with even more people.

We also continued our internal training, and worked to make our office a positive place for our staff. It’s tough to create a healthy, happy, effective office across two locations, but it’s a goal at the very core of The Giles Agency’s ethos: of valuing every individual and caring for the environment and others around us. As we’ve highlighted for many years now, our staff periodically take time out of the office to get into green space, stay active, and give back by volunteering at a charitable cause of their choice. We’re very proud to have been named a Family Friendly Employer by the Hong Kong Home Affairs Bureau and Family Council for 2017-18, emphasising just how much we prioritise our employees.

This attitude – of hiring the very best, and supporting them as they thrive – is shown in some of our personnel updates from 2018. Some of the Gilpies have been with us for a long time and we’d like to highlight two of them: Janice Wong (below left) and Jenny Del Favero (below right). Janice, previously a Chinese Editor, saw huge success this year, and was both awarded our ‘Employee of the Year’ accolade and promoted to lead our Chinese team. Jenny, once our Lead English Editor, took the opportunity to explore and enjoy more of Singapore, and is now the head of our office there.

Alongside old-timers are newcomers! We’ve been lucky enough to bring aboard talented professionals in multiple areas in 2018, including our Art Director Kannis Ho and our new Singapore Account Manager, Pooja Gulati. And of course, we welcomed our new Managing Director extraordinaire, Jen Campbell, whose mission at the helm is take our offerings to ever higher levels. All three of these wonderful ladies are immensely talented at what they do, and have brought a wealth of new knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm to The Giles Agency.

Jen, in fact, brought a little more love with her in the form of Frankie, her beautiful two-year-old French Bulldog! We’re huge animal lovers, and are (overly) excited for Frankie to start joining us in the office a few days a week to bring joy and inspiration to the team. Frankie joined the Gilpie family in December when she was adopted from a dog rescue charity in HK, Animal Friends. She was saved from a life of breeding and cage living, and is now free to roam around our office and enjoy the sites and sounds Hong Kong has to offer. A little timid to start with, she’s slowly coming out of her shell, and we’re really enjoying having her around.

And finally, last but far from least, comes our most recent update: we’ve moved to a new creative, inspiring, flexible Hong Kong workspace at The Hive in Kennedy Town (see more information – and a few too many photos! – on that here).

We’re so excited for what 2019 will bring, and looking forward to bigger and better. Keep an eye on the blog and our social media to stay up to date on everything that’s happening!