Financial PR expert Kirsty Macmaster, a founding partner of
investor relations consultancy Frew Macmaster, has joined Edelman PR
Worldwide to head its European financial PR business.
Macmaster’s appointment signals Edelman’s intention to grow its UK and
European financial PR practice. Most of Edelman UK’s large financial
clients, such as Chase Manhattan Bank and Bank of Austria, already use
the agency globally. Edelman’s European financial income is around
pounds 2 million a year.
’We want to move from servicing global clients in the UK to UK clients
globally,’ said Macmaster.
She is based in London and reports to Carol Ruth, who is based in New
York and is chairman and CEO of the agency’s financial business -
Edelman Financial Worldwide. Macmaster replaces Andrew Dewar, currently
president of Edelman Financial Worldwide. Dewar is moving to Paris to
oversee the agency’s 22-strong Europe, Middle East and African affiliate
network and to build the financial PR unit in France.
Macmaster oversees a team of 15 in the UK, and 30 people on the
continent whose remit includes financial PR will report to her on
specific projects.
Frew Macmaster was founded in 1990, and was acquired by advertising and
PR group Abbott Mead Vickers in 1997. The agency advised clients
including Guinness, engineering firm GKN, Midlands Electricity and
housebuilder Wimpey Homes.
Macmaster joined the Mirror Group in September 1997 as its first
director of corporate communications, but left this spring to work as a
consultant.
Prior to founding Frew Macmaster, she worked as a fund manager with
Allied Dunbar.
Edelman deputy chairman and international president Michael Morley said:
’Our strategy is to become the leading practitioner in the financial
communications sector. Central to this strategy is the creation, in
London of a high quality European investor relations and financial
communications business.’