Triggs quits B-M London for Edelman Europe job

Triggs has quit B-M after more than 15 years to take a newly created role of executive vice-president and European MD health at Edelman.

She has a three-month notice at B-M and expects to start at Edelman in December.

B-M UK chief executive Per Heggenes said he will launch a recruitment process to find a permanent replacement for Triggs.

Director Richard Rockliffe and healthcare MD Amie Malkin have taken interim charge of B-M’s UK health practice.

At Edelman Triggs will report to European president and CEO David Brain and New York-based president and global director for health Nancy Turett.

Edelman has around 52 staff devoted to healthcare within Europe, with 24 in London and the rest in cities such as Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, Madrid and Frankfurt.

Explaining Triggs’s appointment, Turett said the agency had ‘an increasing number of globally co-ordinated assignments’. Edelman clients include drugs giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

Brain, meanwhile, said Triggs’s corporate PR experience was likely to prove as valuable to the agency as her healthcare PR nous.

Edelman is keen to ‘invest further in people and agency acquisitions’ across Europe, added Brain, saying the agency wants to buy a medical education agency, probably in the UK.

Other senior figures that handle healthcare clients at Edelman include London-based duo Nigel Breakwell, the joint CEO, and international director Carolyn Paul.

Triggs took control of the B-M London healthcare team 14 months (PRWeek, 3 July 2003). She has formerly run the corporate and technology practices.

Triggs, who joined B-M as a temp, told PRWeek: ‘I feel like one of the “Burson children” - I have worked with [B-M founder Harold] Burson and will miss being part of his company.’

She added: ‘I am excited by the culture that an independent agency such as Edelman can offer.’