My day

6.00am: My alarm goes off (it’s either that or my cat Willow purrs in my face) and I get ready to leave the house at 6.30am to get to my yoga class at 7am.

8.08am: Yoga finishes at 8am and I then have to endure the (stressful) joys of London Underground, heading to our offices in Euston. Head to Sainsbury’s to collect breakfast, using my Santander 123 credit card to ensure I get my cashback (sorry, I couldn’t resist the product plug, but it is true).

8.50am: Arrive at work. Eat breakfast at my desk (along with my two huge cups of tea – part of my five a day). I am a creature of habit and tend to have the same every day except when I may be suffering from the evening before and then only a Pret salmon and egg mayo baguette will do. Exchange pleasantries with colleagues and catch up on any news. There are eight of us in the press team, covering retail, trade and international and corporate and business banking. It’s a busy office and no day is ever the same. Scan through and respond to emails and Twitter – it’s amazing how much this activity will dominate my day!

10.00am: The team meets to discuss the week ahead and any forthcoming activity. We do tend to be in and out of the office a lot – various meetings with journalists and our colleagues from within the business – so it offers a good opportunity to touch base. My colleagues on the corporate and business banking side of the team, Jemma and Sarah, have been supporting our Breakthrough programme’s UK tour, which has seen chief executive Ana Botin talking about the role of entrepreneurs in driving local economic recovery at various venues. They are rarely in the office at the moment so it’s great to hear first-hand from them about the tour’s successes.

11.00am: Dial in to conference call with our consumer PR agency Citigate to discuss forthcoming activity and brainstorm ideas. I cover the retail side of the business (current accounts, mortgages, credit cards, savings) alongside my colleagues Jonathan and Lara. We liaise with the relevant areas of the business to promote specific products and initiatives to the personal finance and consumer media and Citigate provides great support, helping us develop ideas around omnibus research. The rest of the morning is spent drafting a press releases – we’re about to announce a new range of first-time buyer mortgages as part of the Funding for Lending initiative so keen to get some good pick up on these.

1.00pm: Lunch is usually spent at my desk, catching up with the gossip on Mail Online (what can I say? It’s a welcome distraction sometimes!) or meeting a journalist for lunch.

2.00pm: Early afternoon and it’s time to meet to discuss our forthcoming Santander Media Awards and update on various allocated activities across the team. It’s an annual event – now in its 26^th year – for the PF media and is always well attended (last year we had over 220 guests). With just a few days to go it’s all hands on deck in terms of preparation.

4.00pm: I head down to our internal meeting area “The Street” to meet with our head of savings for a general catch up. It’s good to regularly meet with various business heads to discuss what’s being planned – things can change so much, often on a daily basis and our role can be frequently reactive so maintaining good working relationships with business areas is key to ensuring we can respond to the media promptly. Back to my desk and I start working through some ideas for our general insurance team.

6.15pm: If I’m not headed home for a night in front of the TV, then I’m meeting friends for dinner or catching the latest film with my boyfriend. Tonight my friend Helen is coming round for dinner so it’s a quick visit to the supermarket (that Santander 123 credit card is certainly seeing some use) and head back home to “create” a curried fish pie.

11.00pm: After one or two glasses (okay, it’s more like four or five) of wine, Helen heads home and I wash up the dishes before heading to my bed, with the vain hope that I’ll go for a run tomorrow morning. My cat Willow rests his weary head on my leg and we both go to sleep.