John Brill, who is returning to agency life after a six-year break
to launch the UK arm of Swedish consultancy Kreab, is something of a
father figure to many at the top of PR today.
Both IPR president Philip Dewhurst and PRCA chairman Adrian Wheeler
worked under Brill when he founded Sterling PR before later selling it
to Grey Advertising.
Brill is also literally a father to two other PR professionals, his sons
Jonathon Brill, a director at Bell Pottinger Financial, and Tim Brill,
international PR director at telecoms company Media One
International.
The third brother, James, has opted for a career in publishing.
Jonathon’s first job was at Sterling, when he was 18 years old. Tim was
a Charles Barker trainee under Angela Heylin, and worked at Scope
Communications before it was bought by Ketchum.
He joined Media One four years ago, but the company’s European and Asian
operations, for which he oversees communications, are in the process of
being sold after its acquisition by AT&T.
Tim is scouting around for something new, but assures me that he won’t
be forming a father and son team at Kreab.
