The outgoing director-general of the Office of Fair Trading, John Bridgeman, has joined a newly-formed advisory panel for public affairs agency GPC.
The Omnicom-owned agency has created an International Advisory Board to advise both senior agency management and clients on transnational issues in trade and competition. The board includes two former Canadian cabinet ministers, ex-deputy prime minister Donald Mazankowski and ex-trade and industry secretary Edward Lumley.
Bridgeman stepped down from the OFT last month. Hershell Ezrin, the GPC president and CEO to whom Bridgeman will report, claimed the short gap between being one of the UK's most senior competition officials and taking up a post advising corporate clients on competition issues did not pose a conflict of interest.
'He will not be involved on any files he sat on in his previous capacity,' Ezrin said.
Bridgeman had been at the OFT for five years. Prior to that he was MD of British Alcan Aluminium, the culmination of a career in the metals industry stretching back 30 years.
