Edward Bickham, Hill and Knowlton deputy chairman and managing
director of its public affairs and corporate policy practice, is leaving
the company after seven years.
Bickham has been headhunted by ’a significant international corporation’
and will step down in April. The former adviser to Tory cabinet minister
Douglas Hurd is expected to announce his new post within two weeks,
where it is understood that he will assume a wider business management
role than his public affairs brief has so far covered.
David McLaren remains H&K chairman, with Marie Louise Windeler and
Andrew Laurence joint chief executives. McLaren said: ’It is always
flattering when major companies look to H&K for a solution to their
needs. We prefer them to come as clients than as poachers.’
A successor is not expected to be appointed for the deputy chairman
role.
According to McLaren, the title was ’a personal appointment in
recognition of his seniority in the company’.
A replacement to head the public affairs practice is being actively
sought.
H&K has engaged headhunters and is looking at internal and external
candidates.
Bickham is the third member of the 36-strong board to announce his
departure in two weeks, after the poaching of sponsorship chief John
Tibbs by Bell Pottinger and the news that information industries unit
head Giles Fraser plans to start his own agency.
