Pagefield strengthens senior team with ‘biggest ever batch of new talent’

By Oliver Foster

Wednesday 28th November

Pagefield has strengthened its senior team with the appointments of Martin Townsend as a Partner, Dr David Bull as a Specialist Partner and Laurence Jones as a Specialist Partner.

Martin Townsend, until recently the award-winning Editor of The Sunday Express, joins Pagefield as a Partner on 2nd January 2019. With 40 years’ experience as a journalist, Townsend revitalised The Sunday Express, breaking world exclusives such as Prince Harry’s romance with Meghan Markle. He also established the paper’s ground-breaking Crusade For Better Mental Health – an initiative which scooped the Mind media award and was applauded by Government. Previously he edited OK! Magazine, taking it to a weekly sales figure of 1.7 million copies, and securing exclusive rights to the weddings of David and Victoria Beckham and Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas. He arrives from the heart of Fleet Street to advise Pagefield’s clients across all sectors, as well as helping the agency grow its Pagefield Brands offer with more high-profile consumer-facing companies, individuals and cultural institutions.

Dr David Bull, who rose to fame on high profile network TV shows – such as Newsround, Watchdog, Tomorrow’s World and The Wright Stuff – and currently works on The Jeremy Vine show and hosts a consumer TV show in Paris, joins Pagefield to lead on the growth of the agency’s health and wellness portfolio in the UK and internationally, having previously founded his own 50-strong PR agency, IncrediBull, which had offices in London, LA and San Francisco. This builds on the agency’s new Pagefield Sport and Pagefield Brands offers and its growth in more consumer-facing and digital media campaigns.

Laurence Jones, who has almost 15 years’ public relations experience, joins Pagefield from Dragon Advisory, where he spent seven years working on real estate, Government, corporate, crisis, campaign and sports briefs. Jones will lead the growth of Pagefield’s financial and investor relations communications, bringing with him significant financial communications experience, having begun his career in-house at J Sainsbury PLC as an investor relations specialist before spending four years at FTI Consulting working for developers, fund managers and listed companies in the real estate sector.

All three new members of the team will report directly to Chief Executive, Oliver Foster.

In addition, more top talent will be joining the team across December and early January:

  • Olivia Thornhill, Senior Consultant, joins from Delancey where she has been managing all of its marketing and communications activity including the launch of major projects such as the redevelopment of Royal Mint Court and East Village (the former Olympic Athletes Village). Whilst at Delancey, Thornhill helped to form and launch the British National Snowsports Foundation to provide funding for elite British snowsport athletes. She also managed and hosted the British National Alpine Ski Championships. Before Delancey, she worked at The Communications Group and Edelman.
  • Will Nelson, Consultant, joins Pagefield from sports public relations specialists Soapbox London, where he worked with a variety of high-profile athletes including Anthony Joshua and Marcus Rashford, as well as large brands such as Turkish Airlines and Omega on sponsorship of large sporting events. Nelson has a combined nine years’ experience working in entertainment and sports public relations, with a particular focus on social media, and having previously worked as a publicist at Sky Sports for more than five years.
  • Steph Croucher, Consultant, joins from FleishmanHillard Fishburn where she is an Account Manager working on a range of clients including Danone, Phillips, AB Sugar and Facebook. Before that she worked in Leisure PR for the British Beer and Pub Association and Stonegate Pub Company.
  • Jack Crone, Consultant, joins from Teamspirit, where he has been for the past three years. He is a Senior Account Manager working across a range of clients including Trussle, Centtrip, ayondo, Smith & Williamson and Barnett Waddingham and he recently completed a two-day-a-week secondment at Fidelity International. He started out his career as a news reporter for the Daily Mail, also working at the Manchester Evening News during his training.
  • Jessica Alexander, Senior Executive, joins from Kaso Legg Communications where she is a Junior Account Manager and works across a mixture of financial accounts focusing primarily on working with asset managers.

“The past year has seen the Pagefield family enjoy significant growth and undertake a number of exciting new challenges including the launch of both Pagefield Sport and Pagefield Brands, as well as launching our sister agency, Pagefield Global – specialists in disputes and crisis. As the Pagefield family welcomes our biggest ever single batch of brilliant new talent we’re all looking forward to 2019 with much anticipation – a year in which we will continue to bolster our Brands, Sport and financial communications work, alongside the corporate PR and public affairs campaigning which has run right through our bloodstream since we opened our doors in 2010”.

Oliver Foster, Pagefield’s Chief Executive

Martin Townsend added: “I am hugely excited to be joining the brilliant team at Pagefield, the most effective and forward-thinking agency in the business. I bring with me a wealth of experience, contacts and enthusiasm gleaned from the unique perspective of national newspaper and magazine editorships. I can’t wait to get started!”

Dr David Bull added: “This is an incredibly exciting time in the health and wellness space. Consumers are increasingly concerned about how they can live healthier, longer lives. Empowering them to take control over their own lives by working in partnership with health and wellness brands and traditional medical services is a tremendous opportunity, and Pagefield is uniquely placed to capitalise on this”.

Laurence Jones added: “Pagefield is an ambitious agency with an impressive network and a diverse mix of clients which greatly appeal to me. The next few years are set to be a really exciting period of growth for the consultancy and I’m very much looking forward to playing my part”.

Related News & Insight