Andy Bates
Principal
As Principal at SIR, Andy is responsible for leading strategic planning engagements and impactful communications projects. This role means he often approaches projects through the dual lens of identifying strategic areas of opportunity while also keeping a vigilant eye trained on visual and editorial executions that will generate continued stakeholder engagement and active partnership.
Prior to his current role, Andy served as SIR’s Editorial Manager, working to ensure the content, language, and layout of SIR’s communications and client deliverables was as clear and effective as possible.
In that capacity, Andy touched just about everything SIR produces — from qualitative and quantitative research reports to strategic plans and creative marketing collateral — and he has an uncanny ability to synthesize and distill complex topics in ways that bring research and strategic planning to life for our clients.
Before joining SIR, Andy was a man of many occupations — journalist, editor, stay-at-home dad, organic vegetable farmer. So, he’s handy to have around whether you need help settling a linguistic debate, whether you’re exploring the vast and chaotic world of cloth diapering, or whether you’re battling potato beetles.
When he’s not serving clients, you’ll probably find Andy building something with his son out of Legos, blocks, Picasso Tiles, James River driftwood, or just straight-up garbage. (Yeah, his kid makes projects out of trash, and we’re all OK with that. For now.)
Conveying the Heart:
One thing that always bugged me about traditional business writing or reports is how formulaic, and even robotic, they can feel. It’s almost as if some people actually want you to throw that report in a drawer and never look at it again.
I believe all writing should have some heart in it, and so I make it my business to care about what our clients care about just as deeply as they do — and to speak to them in ways that will resonate long after they’ve read our findings or strategic plan.