Burger King parent company Grand Metropolitan has turned to Buckingham
Palace to fill its top PR job.
Charles Anson, the Queen’s press secretary, joins the company in
February 1997 as group corporate relations director. The post - reported
to carry a salary of around pounds 120,000 - has been vacant since group
corporate communications director Mary Carroll left in August to return
to the US.
The announcement may disappoint NatWest Group which had also been
considering Anson as a replacement for its former director of corporate
affairs Simon Lewis.
At Grand Met Anson inherits a new title and brief which includes
government, trade and media relations as well as internal
communications. He will lead a team of four executives reporting to
Grand Met’s group services director David Tagg.
A former diplomat, Anson spent three years at merchant bank Kleinwort
Benson as group PR director before joining the Palace in 1990. He is
succeeded by his deputy Geoff Crawford, another former diplomat who
joined as assistant press secretary to the Queen in June 1988, on
secondment from the Australian diplomatic service.
Crawford is, in turn, succeeded by assistant press secretary Penelope
Russell-Smith and the Palace is recruiting a replacement for her role.
