Bristol Media boss Mike Bennett takes Bristol placemaking role

Bennett will start the new role on 1 September and will be responsible for promoting the city to attract new investment, jobs, visitors and residents. This will be a two-year role initially.

The post will work through the Bristol Partnership’s Prosperous and Ambitious Board and be funded by public and private partners including Bristol City Council, the University of Bristol and Destination Bristol.

The role will include responsibility for devising initiatives to enhance Bristol’s sense of place, co-ordinating training for frontline staff and influencing city planning and development authorities. The council describes it as ‘Bristol’s “brand guardian”’.

Bennett says, ‘Bristol is a great city with some fantastic assets and we need to package these up and promote them on an international stage. We have some of the most exciting digital and Green companies emerging across the city, but we need to really raise our levels of ambition and aspiration if we’re going to capitalise on these industries in years to come.’

He adds, ‘This new role gives me the ability to work with a whole host of business and public-sector partners to ensure the “Bristol brand” is out across the world, competing with the best of them and is consistent and clear across everything we do.’

Bennett says he will continue as a non-executive director of both Bristol Media and E3 Media after taking on the new placemaking role.