Helen Glanville
Founder and director of Hawkeye Media, with a background in BBC factual programmes and investigative journalism.
Helen helps organisations prepare their spokespeople for media interviews, challenging questions and realistic crisis scenarios. Her work combines journalism, programme-making and communications preparation, with experience of interview simulations for senior executive assessment.
That background brings a practical understanding of how an interviewer develops a subject and what an audience needs to understand.
Founder and director
Experience behind the questions
Helen’s BBC career included senior producing, directing and programme-editing roles on mainstream factual television. Her programme experience includes Panorama, Newsnight and Watchdog, as well as investigative documentary series.
Her earlier newspaper work included the Sunday Times, Sunday Mirror, Mail on Sunday, Times Educational Supplement and the Birmingham Post and Mail. These roles provided experience of finding a story, testing an explanation and making complex material understandable.
Executive interviews and video production
Helen has worked with executive recruitment companies on simulated media interviews used in the assessment and selection of chief executives and vice-chancellors. This work involves constructing relevant questions and examining how candidates communicate in a demanding interview setting.
Her production background also covers television and corporate video, script editing and video news releases. These skills support the creation of realistic material for exercises and films intended to explain an organisation’s work.
Read about executive recruitment interview assessment or explore Hawkeye Media’s video services.
Media preparation and crisis rehearsal
Helen’s training work includes advising organisations on messages and preparing people to explain them under questioning. She has also supported disaster-training exercises for international businesses in Europe, providing simulated broadcast material and analysis after the exercise.
For a spokesperson, rehearsal is an opportunity to test the clarity of an answer before a real interview. It can reveal where a message needs stronger evidence, where detail becomes confusing and how a difficult question changes the conversation.
Explore Hawkeye Media’s media training and crisis media training for more about the programmes available.
A client example of tailored preparation
The Sutton and East Surrey Water case study describes Helen’s work on media and crisis training for senior executives, alongside video production. Feedback from Surrey House Corporate Communication discusses the relevance of the questioning and the attention given to messaging and delivery.
Discuss the preparation your team needs
Tell Hawkeye Media about the people taking part, their responsibilities and the interviews or scenarios they need to rehearse. We will discuss the brief, suitable training and trainer availability.