PR company Williams Nicolson hires 4 enterprise massive hitters
The latter role goes to Nick Bowers, whose 34-year career in investment banking includes head of UK equities at Goldman Sachs and head of corporate broking at Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Bowers also becomes a founding shareholder.
The other three who join as special advisers are:
– Phil McManus, who has worked in corporate communications for over 20 years, first in consulting and then internally as communications director for Vodafone, Sky plc, Rolls Royce and Worldpay. At Vodafone, McManus was part of the team involved in managing the consolidation and integration following the Mannesmann acquisition for over £ 110bn. At Worldpay, she led the prosecution during the 2015 IPO.
– Paul Kelly, who has 35 years of European corporate finance transaction experience in M&A, IPOs and leverage finance, served as Co-Chair of the European Investment Banking Committee at PwC, 3i, Lazard, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. He has held various finance and communications advisory roles.
– Paul Newman, co-founder of energy broker ICAP Energy (part of ICAP plc) who led the company for 26 years as CEO and then Chairman. He is the governor and councilor of the Ditchley Foundation charity.
Williams said: “We are very excited to have Nick, Phil, Paul and Paul in the company. They are all exceptionally gifted people with impressive track records. Plus, they’re all great fun! “
Nicolson added, “The arrival of these four brilliant consultants strengthens our business and shows how serious we are about providing the very best strategic advice to executives. Watch this room. “
Williams Nicolson started in January as a “strategic communication and change management consultancy” with a focus on “data-driven communication”.
Williams, the founder of Capital MSL, who ran Portland’s financial communications division before leaving late last year, worked briefly with Nicolson when he was Managing Director of Porta and she was a partner at Porta’s own agency, Newgate.
Nicolson previously founded and managed two PR agencies: Comtext Communications and Bread and sold them to the 3×1 Group in 2015. She is the author of ‘The Entrepreneurial Myth: A Manifesto for Real Business’ which was published in 2018.
The company’s six start-up customers included the international recruiting company Robert Walters, the AIM-listed professional services group Ince, the Japanese insurance company Sompo and HeliOffshore, the European organization for the offshore helicopter industry.
