Sheila Gunn, John Major’s political press secretary until May, has
re-emerged as PR manager at Mayfair estate agent Healey and Baker.
Gunn worked for the Times for a decade, latterly as a lobby
correspondent, until she was recruited by Conservative Central Office
three years ago as head of press relations.
At Healey and Baker, she reports to marketing director Martin
Newman.
The firm has UK offices in the West End, the City, Glasgow and the
Channel Islands.
Healey and Baker has 47 equity partners and 1,200 staff worldwide. The
firm’s reputation is based primarily on retail property agency work,
investment advice and research.
Unlike its competitors in the first division of property consultants,
such as Chesterton, DTZ Debenham Thorpe, Jones Lang Wootton and Richard
Ellis, which have bigger regional networks of offices, Healey and Baker
mainly handles UK PR centrally from its London office in Hanover
Square.
Healey and Baker will continue to work with Lowe Bell Financial, its
City PR firm of three years.
Gunn, 49, describes her role during the six-week election campaign as
tough: ’The worst times were damage limitation, caused not by Labour but
by our own side.’
Her election campaign diary will be serialised soon in a national
newspaper, she said.