Edelman and The Centre

Left to right: Jere Sullivan (Edelman Global Public Affairs Practice Chair), David Brain (CEO Edelman EMEA), Laurent Chokoualé Datou (Joint Managing Director, Edelman/The Centre), Martin Porter (Joint Managing Director, Edelman/The Centre), Paul Adamson (Chairman, Edelman/The Centre), Michael Burrell (Edelman EMEA Public Affairs Practice Chair).

Great day in Brussels today as we got to announce the merger of our Brussels Public Affairs business with The Centre. The Centre is run by Paul Adamson and Martin Porter who I have known for 10 years since we worked at Charles Barker/BSMG together. They describe The Centre as a “think do tank”, and the combined aoperations will be a powerful new force in the market here and structured to grow even faster. Press release is below:

Edelman Expands Global Public Affairs Network
Through Merger with The Centre in Brussels
Addition Marks First of Planned Moves
to Expand Edelman’s Reach in Government Affairs Sector

Brussels, March 22, 2010 — Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm and The Centre, Brussels’ first think-do tank announced today that they are merging their organisations in Europe’s capital city.

The new firm, to be named Edelman The Centre, will combine the strength of one of the world’s largest public affairs networks in Edelman with one of Brussels’ premier public affairs agencies to deliver additional services and expertise to the clients of both firms. The firm will be jointly managed by The Centre’s co-founder and Managing Director, Martin Porter and Edelman Brussels General Manager, Laurent Chokoualé Datou. The two seasoned and highly respected EU public affairs practitioners will be supported by Brussels veteran and other co-founder of The Centre, Paul Adamson, who will act as Chairman of the new entity.

“Since the crisis of September 2008, government has played a more activist role in regulating business, even as investor of last resort. Merging with The Centre doubles our size and provides our clients with one of the largest public affairs and corporate capabilities in the European capital – complementing our strong presence in world capitals including Washington, DC, Beijing, London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Moscow,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO, Edelman. “Our opportunity is to support clients for further engagement of EU institutions and national governments across Europe to address key societal challenges from healthcare to trade, as well as regulatory initiatives.”

The deal delivers widely complementary client portfolios and specialist expertise in a number of important sectors including Technology and Innovation, Energy and Climate, Environment and Sustainability, Financial Services, Consumer, Health, Trade and Competition affairs. The combined service offering includes EU public affairs and government relations, corporate communications, marketing, B2B, crisis and issue management, online and grassroots advocacy, opinion research and strategic event management.

In the short term the leadership of Edelman The Centre will focus on promoting synergies in the teams’ skills and expertise to the benefit of their clients and new business prospects.

Commenting on the announcement, David Brain, Edelman’s CEO for the EMEA region said: “Laurent, Martin and Paul will be a fantastic team leading our combined business in Brussels and offering our clients an even greater level of speciality and service. The staff of both organisations are truly excellent but to have that quality of leadership team in place is very exciting”.

Paul Adamson said: “This is a very exciting partnership in this stage of The Centre’s development. Edelman are not simply a major global player but have earned enormous respect and multiple awards for their sustained commitment to the highest quality of service to their clients and the highest standards of nurturing talent in their organisation”.

Both Edelman and The Centre place high emphasis in sustaining their client counselling and communications programmes with the development of their own intellectual capital which includes the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, Capital Staffers Survey and Good Purpose™ survey on Edelman’s side and The Centre’s well-established forum activities.
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About Edelman
Edelman is the world’s leading independent public relations firm, with 3,200 employees in 51 offices worldwide. Edelman was named Advertising Age’s top-ranked PR firm of the decade, PRWeek’s “2009 Agency of the Year” and “Large Agency of the Year” (for the third time in the last four years), and Holmes Report’s “Agency of the Decade” and “2009 Best Large Agency to Work For.” Edelman owns specialty firms Blue (advertising), StrategyOne (research), and BioScience Communications (medical education and publishing).
For more information about Edelman, please visit http://www.edelman.com/

About The Centre
The Centre is Brussels’ first think-do tank, operating at the interface of European public policy and communications. The Centre’s innovative blend of activities reflects the growing role of Brussels not just as a hub for global public policy but also of international communications. With its purpose of pioneering new forms of dialogue and promoting better communication among business, civil society and public policy leaders in Europe, The Centre operates two complementary spheres of activity:
o A forum for developing, exchanging, and driving forward ideas on European and global policy issues
o An intelligent communications consultancy
For more information about The Centre please visit http://www.thecentre.eu/
For further information regarding this release, please contact: Martin Porter + 32 473 50 28 53 or Laurent Chokoualé Datou: +32 496 55 28 63

Lousy sound my apologies; you will need to turn the volume up fairly high to hear it.