A storyteller at heart, Joe Perry began his career after gaining a BA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Joe discovered a passion for meeting new people and hearing their stories while working as a careers advisor, where he came across the job listing for Internal Communications Support Officer (Staff) at the University of Leicester. And the rest they say, is history…
In October 2025, CASE announced Joe as the recipient of the 2025 Martin Bojam Emerging Marketing and Communications Professional Award, which forms part of the CASE Europe Awards.
The CASE Europe Awards for Emerging Professionals celebrate inspirational individuals who are making a significant impact in their teams and the sector early in their careers, while demonstrating CASE's values, which include innovation, professional excellence and collaboration.
At the time of the award, Joe was working as Internal Communications Manager (Students), after stepping into the role in December 2024. We caught up with Joe following the announcement of his award win.
What aspects of your day-to-day role do you enjoy most?
Alongside feeding into strategy and planning meetings for the vast portfolio of projects we support, I love speaking with our students. I believe it is so important to be present and visible to our student body, explaining who we are, what we do, why we send them communications, and the importance of engaging with us, as their student communications team.
So, you’ll often find me getting away from my desk and speaking to students, whether that be at Graduation ceremonies, at our Academic Reps Forums, or more recently, receiving thousands of students during Welcome Week in September.
A key part of my role is ensuring that our students feel heard, therefore we provide platforms for them to feed back any thoughts, issues or concerns. Each year, Leicester participates in the National Student Survey (NSS), which helps measure student satisfaction, and this year we cemented our position as a top 15 university. I am so pleased to say that 77.2% of our eligible students took part—our second highest response rate since 2008! Our NSS success wouldn’t have been possible without our Print team dressing our campus with posters and banners, or our Education Services team liaising with our teaching staff to embed the NSS into the curriculum.
What is your proudest work project to date?
During our summer graduation series, selected graduating students took to the stage to share personal insights and memories from their time at university in a short speech. I was tasked with creating visual content from the ceremony. I felt so fortunate that our wonderful students allowed me to be there to capture such a personal moment in their lives, surrounded by their family and friends.
The pressure was on as there were so many moving parts and no opportunity to refilm anything, but I’m pleased that the content I produced has been used by multiple teams across the university and showcased on a variety of channels. This student speaker work wouldn’t have been possible without my colleagues in the Events team—thank you for letting me gatecrash your graduation ceremonies!
How did it feel to be nominated for, and subsequently win, the Martin Bojam Emerging Marketing and Communications Professional Award?
For those who know me, being nominated for something like this doesn’t come too naturally; I don’t even tell people when it is my birthday. However, it is an honour to have my name alongside that of Martin’s. I have read many messages online from HE colleagues who had the pleasure of working with Martin Bojam, and it is clear how dearly loved and missed he is by all.
I would like to thank my manager, Amy, for nominating me, but I would also not be able to achieve what I do without the supportive team around me, who are receptive to my ideas and eager to add innovation to every output we produce.
Reading through the values listed on the CASE website, I feel so proud that my work is identified as being aligned. A large part of my role is to ensure inclusivity is embedded across the board and to embrace the diversity of our university community, especially being in the melting pot that is Leicester. This work includes highlighting the array of cultures on our global campus, showcasing the work of our student groups from undergraduates to postgraduate researchers, or championing our incredible staff body from those in estates and campus services through to our pioneering academics.
What interactions have you had with the CASE community?
In May this year, I attended Student Communications as my first CASE event. I loved the opportunity to network and share ideas. It was so useful to hear best practice examples from projects that aligned with what we are also trying to work on as a team. I also really appreciated when colleagues shared what didn’t work. We have been guided by the advice and guidance gained in these sessions and implemented it into our own ongoing projects, which I am very grateful for.
As a bit of a nerd for all things tech, at the CASE Europe Annual Conference in November, I looked out for sessions focused on digital innovation within the sector. I know there is ongoing debate about AI and its use within communications and HE, but I do believe it is here to stay. So, it was interesting to consider how we can embrace this.
Also, in November, I joined the Alumni Relations Coffee Chat as a speaker and shared examples of how we reimagined our student and staff newsletter, and use student-led content generation to unite staff, students and alumni around shared goals and strategic priorities.
What's next for you?
In December, my current role comes to an end as my colleague returns from maternity leave. However, I am so excited to be staying at the University of Leicester in a brand-new Digital Communications Manager role. So, unfortunately for my team, this means that they will have to continue working alongside me for many, many years to come.
Without sounding like an X-Factor sob story, the University of Leicester gave me an opportunity to break into a brand-new sector and really develop my passion and interests. I have had so much flexibility and scope to be creative in projects, trying new things and building university-wide partnerships.
Despite the ongoing challenges across the HE sector, it's the people who never fail to amaze me. I'm grateful to meet so many passionate people, who give their absolute all to their respective roles at the university, to provide a world-class teaching and learning experience for our students, past, present and future.
Look out for the CASE Europe Awards opening for nominations in May 2026, and consider nominating your emerging professionals.