Clive Reeves

Founder of Reeves | Communications adviser | LGBTQ+ workplace advocate | Deputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands

Good PR is usually about making somebody else the story. Clive Reeves has spent more than four decades doing exactly that.

His full-time working life began in Birmingham in June 1982. Since then there have been press cuttings, radio studios, public-information campaigns, agency boardrooms, European briefs, a spell delivering parcels before satnav existed, more than a few crises and, eventually, appointment as a Deputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands.

Today, Clive is founder and chief executive of Reeves, the independent communications consultancy based in Birmingham and Newcastle upon Tyne. He also founded Out of Office, the LGBTQ+ professional network created to make LGBTQ+ people more visible in everyday business and professional life.

Birmingham, the Black Country and a goat

Clive was born in Birmingham in 1964 and grew up in Great Barr and West Bromwich, with family roots across Birmingham and the Black Country.

His relationship with newspapers started early. At about 14 he made what he remembers as his first appearance in the Express & Star. The story involved a goat. It was not, as far as he can remember, the beginning of a sophisticated media strategy.

He left school at 18 and went straight into work. University wasn't part of the plan.

His first full-time job was as a trainee architectural technician with Percy Thomas Partnership, where he was part of the team involved in the successful scheme bid for Birmingham's International Convention Centre.

At a suspiciously late stage, aged in his 40s, he also spent time gaining work experience in the newsroom at BBC Television Centre, getting an fascinating look at how news decisions were actually made.

Architecture didn't last. The fascination with communications did.

Road safety, public information and hospital radio

In 1984, Clive joined Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council as an assistant road safety officer.

This wasn't simply teaching people how to cross a road. The job involved campaigns, publicity, public information, schools, media work and trying to persuade people to change what they did. It also involved becoming Wally the Road Safety Rhino - a local costumed character who delivered an educational outreach initiative. This was the heyday of the Green Cross Man, embodied by actor Dave Prowse. In telling the tale these days, Clive is more likely to describe the campaign simply as having lunch with Darth Vader.

It was, in many ways, PR before Clive started calling it PR.

He became a regular source for the regional media and was quoted and pictured in local newspapers, including a substantial feature about him and the job. He still has a collection of the original cuttings.

At the same time, Clive was presenting programmes on Sandwell Hospital Radio, after training at BHBN. He became involved in hospital broadcasting in around 1982 and continued for roughly 15 years.

The technology was different. The principles weren't: know who you're talking to, make the subject interesting and don't waste people's time.

Setting up in business at 25

By the late 1980s, Clive had moved fully into marketing communications and PR.

In 1989, aged 25, he set up his first marketing communications agency in West Bromwich. He ran it for seven years before deciding in 1997 to give employment another go.

There followed agency and consultancy roles across the West Midlands and work for some substantial organisations. In the early 1990s, Clive advised Compagnie Générale des Eaux, now part of Veolia, as it entered the UK waste-management market.

Then came one of the less glamorous lines on the CV.

Before satnav, there was the A-Z

Redundancy in 2004 was followed by a brief spell working as a Parcelforce delivery driver.

This was before satnav. A day's deliveries meant an A-Z map book, memory and actually knowing where places were.

It is one reason Clive still knows his way around the West Midlands rather better than most people.

And he has never seen any reason to pretend the job didn't happen. Work is work. Careers go wrong, change direction and start again. The interesting bit is what you do next.

Clive returned to consultancy and later folded that business into Birmingham advertising and PR agency Ward Lovett, where he became public relations director.

Refreshing the brand: Reeves

Clive left Ward Lovett in 2009 and relaunched his own consultancy.

The business launched as Clive Reeves Public Relations and developed into what is now Reeves, an independent communications consultancy working from Birmingham and Newcastle upon Tyne.

By the public launch in 2010, Clive already had more than 25 years' experience in marketing communications.

Reeves now works across PR, corporate communications, press office, crisis and reputation management, content, social media and video.

The sectors have changed over the years. The basic job hasn't. Understand the organisation, work out what matters to the audience and tell the story properly.

The PR person shouldn't be the story

Clive has never subscribed to the Max Clifford school of public relations.

If the PR adviser is constantly the story, the client probably isn't.

Most of Clive's career has therefore taken place behind the names that made the headlines: major businesses, retailers, universities, manufacturers, cultural organisations, charities and public bodies.

Early Reeves work included Aston Business School, Birmingham Science Park and Dunlop Motorsport.

For Birmingham Royal Ballet, the agency worked on Ballet, Birmingham & Me, involving young people from across the city. PRWeek subsequently featured the work as a campaign case study.

The consultancy's Care Home Crisis work was shortlisted for Crisis Communications at the 2011 CIPR Midlands PRide Awards, while Clive Reeves Public Relations was also shortlisted for Outstanding Small Consultancy.

Automotive work grew into European briefs. Reeves worked for Goodyear Dunlop EMEA, with Clive leading activity from Brussels.

In 2014, Selfridges Birmingham appointed the consultancy following a competitive pitch, a relationship that endured for eight years.

The agency later worked for the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers' Association, adding to a long run of automotive and European industry communications.

Over the years there have been many more clients, but a biography doesn't need to become a shopping list. The point is the level of work: substantial organisations, complicated reputations and communications that mattered.

Part of the profession, not just the agency

Clive has always believed that if PR wants to be taken seriously as a profession, practitioners have to contribute to it.

He became vice-chair of PRCA Midlands in 2012 and later served as chairman.

He has also served as a judge for the PRCA DARE Awards, assessing work from agencies and in-house communications teams.

Reeves first achieved the PRCA Communications Management Standard in 2010 and has continued to maintain the accreditation.

In 2022, Reeves won the national PRCA Workplace Champions Award in the Very Small Agency category.

For Clive, that one mattered. Workplace culture, inclusion and giving people a chance are not things he believes should exist only in an agency values statement.

In 2026, Clive was personally shortlisted for Diversity & Inclusion Leader in TheBusinessDesk.com's West Midlands Leadership Awards.

Having an opinion

Clive has never been particularly interested in saying what everybody else is already saying.

Over the years he has been asked by the Birmingham business media to comment on communications, reputation and the PR industry.

He has also written about the less glamorous realities of running a PR business, including credit insurance and cash flow.

In 2022, he argued that traditional PR was heading for extinction if agencies continued to defend old distinctions between PR, content, social media, video and wider communications while audiences had long since stopped caring about them.

He has also been profiled by Birmingham Living about his career, business and relationship with the city.

You don't need a degree to be good at something

Clive went straight from school into employment and has never believed that university should be treated as a compulsory rite of passage into professional life.

He later gained an Building Studies qualification, but most of what has mattered in his career came from doing the job.

That doesn't make him anti-university. Reeves has advised universities and education organisations at senior level and today works extensively across schools, colleges, multi-academy trusts, specialist education and SEND.

The argument is simpler than that.

Aptitude matters. Curiosity matters. Judgement matters. Being able to do the job matters.

A certificate is useful. It isn't a substitute for any of those things.

Clive has applied the same principle when recruiting at Reeves. A degree has not been an automatic requirement where somebody has the aptitude and skills to succeed.

The agency was publicly backing apprenticeships and alternatives to graduate-only recruitment as far back as 2016.

Out at work since 1982

Clive has been openly gay throughout his working life.

That means being out at work through more than four decades in which attitudes to LGBTQ+ people in business have changed enormously.

His view is straightforward: people shouldn't have to edit themselves when they walk through the office door.

In 2011, he founded Out of Office in Birmingham.

Out of Office is a professional network for LGBTQ+ people and allies, but the networking is almost secondary to the point behind it.

Visibility matters.

The idea is to put LGBTQ+ people visibly into ordinary business and professional spaces: law firms, boardrooms, workplaces, civic venues and institutions, rather than assuming LGBTQ+ life belongs somewhere separate.

The Birmingham programme has now passed 50 events and Out of Office has expanded to Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead.

Its wider programme has included the Birmingham launch of Pride in Leadership at Shoosmiths, with Sir Andy Street CBE discussing being an openly gay leader in business and politics.

In Newcastle, Out of Office has formed part of Newcastle Pride Fringe, including Bold Voices, Bright Futures at Ward Hadaway.

That event included North East Mayor Kim McGuinness and senior figures from business and civic life.

In 2026, Out of Office returned to Pride Fringe at Newcastle Building Society's Monument branch.

Reeves has also supported LGBTQ+ sport and community organisations including Birmingham Blaze FC and Birmingham Bulls RFC.

Prostate cancer: talk about it

In 2022, Clive was diagnosed with prostate cancer following a PSA blood test.

He chose to talk about it.

Partly because he has spent a career telling organisations that hiding difficult subjects rarely makes them easier, and partly because men not talking about prostate cancer can have much more serious consequences than an awkward conversation.

His experience featured in the Daily Mirror as part of national coverage about men delaying seeking medical help.

Clive has also been a longstanding supporter and adviser to Birmingham cancer charity Help Harry Help Others, using his professional skills to help raise awareness of its work.

Civic life

In 2025, Clive was appointed aDeputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands.

His duties include civic, ceremonial and community engagements on behalf of the Lord-Lieutenant.

Education has also been a longstanding part of his community involvement. Clive has served as a governor and academy director of James Brindley School in Birmingham and is a governor of an independent special school.

He has served on the board of Birmingham Press Club.

He is a member of the Royal Television Society and Press Club Brussels Europe.

In 2026, Clive became a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Communicators, the City of London livery company for the communications profession.

He is also a Freeman of the City of London.

Birmingham, Newcastle and Stay Ouseburn

Birmingham and the Black Country remain home territory, but North East England has become a significant second part of Clive's life.

His husband, David Rowell, is from the North East. They married in New York City in 2016.

Reeves now operates from Birmingham and Newcastle, Out of Office has an established North East programme, and Clive also runs Stay Ouseburn, providing short-stay accommodation in Newcastle's Ouseburn Valley.

And yes, after the Parcelforce experience, he generally knows how to find it without satnav.

Still doing the job

More than four decades after starting work, Clive remains hands-on with clients.

He advises business owners, chief executives and senior teams on reputation, media strategy, positioning, difficult communications issues and what to say when the answer isn't immediately obvious.

The tools have changed enormously since 1982. Typewriters, posted photographs and paper press cuttings have given way to social media, video, digital publishing and AI.

The basic job hasn't changed nearly as much:

Understand the organisation. Understand the audience. Work out what matters. Tell the story properly.