The founder directors are Nick DeLuca, former MD of APCO UK; Graham McMillan, former head of PA at Fishburn Hedges; Victoria Tate, former head of PA at the Spirit Group; and Martin Le Jeune, who leaves BSkyB as head of PA at the end of this month. 

BSkyB is expected to retain Open Road as its public affairs agency as a result.

Other launch clients will include Novus Leisure, Ril­ey’s snooker halls and the Pre-school Learning Alliance. The agency aims to specialise in the leisure, food and drink, aerospace and utilities markets, in which the founders have considerable combined experience.

McMillan, who will be chief executive of the new agency, said the founders saw a gap in the market for providing ‘joined up thinking in terms of broad stakeholder relations... we won’t be a press release factory’.

Open Road aims to build an international affiliate network of agencies, including in Brussels and Washington, to provide  client services.

DeLuca, who will be Open Road’s chairman, said: ‘Clients are looking for not just the best in corporate communications, public affairs and corporate respon­sibility, but senior people who can advise and deliver in an integrated way.’

Le Jeune said they chose an agency name that suggested a ‘collegiate app­roach’, adding: ‘We are foc­using on the way forward for clients, rather than our own egos.’