What’s that popular saying about caring for someone and setting them free, in the hope they’ll always return…?
It’s very much with that sentiment that I’m announcing that Linsay Leslie is returning to the partnership team on 1 March. As a company that encourages career growth, we were proud that Linsay, Partner and Head of Directories, Bids and Tenders since 2016, spent most of 2022 as interim Marketing and Business Development Director with top 100 independent Scottish law firm, Shepherd and Wedderburn.
Former lawyer Linsay has always been a crucial and valued member of the MD Communications family. While she was missed, we were delighted to watch her career continue to develop with another in-house turn. Naturally we’re even more delighted by her impending return with a focus on growing our services in Scotland, the North and internationally, through our Scottish office.
It is with huge pride that I announce further expansion to the MD Communications team for 2023.
Katherine Howbrook joins us as a Partner in London, leading on the growth of our domestic and international PR offering, for wider professional services clients. Katherine has over 19 years’ experience promoting and protecting some of the world’s biggest brands including PwC and more recently with a particular focus on ESG. In addition to leading our ESG communications offering for our clients she will head up our own pro-bono commitment to the sector and beyond as we expand our giving back even further this year.
Our exceptional partnership team of five, which also includes James Hayhurst and Steve Rudaini, is unrivalled in the market having worked across top 100 law firms, global accountancy firms, Blue chip FTSE 100 companies, led advertising agencies, and worked with some of the worlds most prestigious HNW premium brands before joining MD Communications.
Anthony Notaras joins this month as our Head of Strategic Content, with more than 20 years’ experience in the legal market globally, including being a researcher on the Legal 500 series and a reporter and news editor at Legal Business magazine.
Julia Hepner, former Magic Circle lawyer, also joins the team as Client Listening and Relationships Director, after successfully establishing and running client relationship programmes for top-100 law firms.
In other emotional returns, the end of last year saw Emma Maule, our fantastic Head of Digital, return from mat leave. A huge thank you goes to Bev Salt and Sameena Safdar, who covered Emma’s role while she was away. Sameena continues to develop our personal brand training globally and Bev will continue to deliver LinkedIn training with our team. The brilliant Elliot Boss, who has been with us since our launch in 2010, started 2023 with a well deserved promotion to Director of Operations.
With our increased success, it is only right and a huge part of our culture, that we give back as much as we can. Our pro bono work will increase further this year with a detailed campaign supporting neurodiversity in the sector, in addition to all our existing pro bono projects, which includes an exciting launch of the Parents Promise HR initiative at the Houses of Parliament later this week, which has only been possible because of our phenomenal and dedicated team.
Who said January was boring?
