James Howells and Siân Lewis

After entering the DMA Breakthrough awards competition, myself and James Howells are now regional finalists!!!

This semester we have been working on a brief given to us from Barclays Bank. They want 10,000 new students to bank with them during their time at university 🎓


After being shortlisted for the Manchester heat, we had the honour of presenting to Nicole Gronland, Dr Jeff McCarthy and Sally Stevens. There were so many amazing ideas and fantastic presentations – I would not have liked to have been in their position!

We were so excited for our next steps into this competition, and James Howells and I had the most amazing opportunity to pitch our own marketing campaign idea to the team at Barclays UK at their head offices in Canary Wharf.

We were then invited as regional finalists to the awards ceremony hosted by the DMA (Data & Marketing Association) UK. This was an incredible experience and hopefully the first of many award ceremonies we will be invited to!

Being surrounded by so many industry professionals and connecting with such talented individuals made the event a night I will never forget 🥳

I am so grateful to have been able to have worked on such an exciting project with my best friend James Howells and I am so excited for what we have planned next.



Thank you to Anna Lancashire for consoling our nerves, keeping us in check and supporting us throughout the entire competition 😊

Finally, I have to thank Stuart Grainger for everything he has done to help James and I get to this stage of the competition. We are so grateful!!