Adrian Salmon – Head of TPR Education
Adrian began his career with The Phone Room in 1997, as one of the first members of the calling team. Over the next 8 years Adrian took a leading role in the company, becoming The Phone Room’s Head of Business Development and Client Services, in charge of all The Phone Room’s telephone campaigns.
He has masterminded large-scale telephone campaigns for Symphony Hall Birmingham and the National Galleries of Scotland, both of which won the Professional Fundraising Award for Best Telephone Campaign, as well as for Guide Dogs, the South Bank Centre, St Hilda’s College Oxford and St Hugh’s College, Oxford, among many others.
Adrian is hugely experienced in both account direction and creative, and is also an expert on the Data Protection Act in relation to telephone fundraising campaigns.
Vanessa Blake - Managing Director, The Phone Room
Vanessa joined The Phone Room in 2001 and has been Managing Director since early 2004. She has more than 15 years’ experience within call centre management, along with substantial charity management and fundraising expertise. Vanessa’s management, sales and fundraising experience and abilities have been instrumental in our success, and led to The Phone Room being named ‘Best Call Centre Under 50 Seats’ in the 2003 European Call Centre Awards.
Vanessa’s previous roles in the charity sector included Supporter Communications Manager for Oxfam, where she was responsible for the entire supporter contact unit and all relevant contact channels. During her time in this post she successfully restructured Oxfam’s supporter communication departments.
Vanessa has also held a number of senior telesales and telemarketing management positions in various commercial sectors, most notably as National Customer Services Manager for Powwow (a UK subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa), where she established and ran the UK water sales and service division, managing a 100 seat call centre.
David Dixon – Chairman, The Phone Room
A leading figure in the UK fundraising sector, as a consultant David helped many not-for-profit organisations develop and implement new telephone fundraising, telemarketing and individual giving strategies, before founding The Phone Room in 1997.
He specialises in helping cultural and heritage organisations to plan and implement fundraising and has personal clients in the UK, Spain and The Netherlands.
He has been a member of the Institute of Fundraising since 1988 and is also a member of EU Consult, the European Planned Giving Association, Audiences Europe Network, Associations of Arts Fundraisers and the Arts Marketing Association.
A regular conference speaker on telemarketing, fundraising, development and individual giving issues, he also writes frequently for the industry’s leading professional publications.