Public Affairs: The Week in Lobbying

PR Week UK, Friday, 29 January 2010, 12:00am,

Weber Shandwick has appointed former parliamentary researcher Lisa O'Toole as an account manager in its public affairs practice. O'Toole has worked for the Conservative MPs Crispin Blunt, Richard Taylor, Justine Greening, Andrew Robathan and Peter Bottomley.

Heineken UK has selected Burson-Marsteller to provide public affairs support. B-M's public affairs practice chairman, George Hutchinson, is reporting to Heineken UK's head of public affairs Fenella Tyler.

Connect Public Affairs is changing its name to Connect Communications. The new name reflects the agency's growth in areas such as media relations, training and conferences.

Twelve Thirty Eight has landed an international PR and public affairs brief with Lagan Technologies, the largest indigenous software company in Northern Ireland. Twelve Thirty Eight is headed by MD Hamish Thompson, a former director of group media relations at DSG International.

Ellwood & Atfield, the public affairs recruitment specialist, has snared Lionel Zetter as a senior consultant. Former CIPR president Zetter is a vice-president of PublicAffairsAsia and a director of pollsters ComRes.