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Burson-Marsteller appoints Stafford as Hong Kong CEO and market leader

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Burson-Marsteller has announced the appointment of Matt Stafford as CEO and market leader of its Hong Kong operation and Christine Jones as chief executive officer and market leader of its Australia business.

Stafford has 14 years of public relations experience in the corporate, technology and public affairs sectors in Hong Kong, Australia and across Asia and will report to Bob Pickard, President and CEO of Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific.

“Matt is one of the finest leadership talents with whom I’ve had the privilege to serve our clients and he has been a key player growing our Hong Kong and Asian client business to a market-leading position over the past four years,” Pickard said. “His group had the lowest turnover rate in the region, which is a testament to his leadership and to the positive value the Hong Kong team is providing our rapidly expanding community of clients.”

In addition to his many years of support to corporations and government agencies in Hong Kong, Stafford also leads Burson-Marsteller’s global counsel to Asian-headquartered firms, such as Huawei, as they position their brands and enhance their corporate communications around the world.

“Burson-Marsteller has a strong heritage in Hong Kong and is known as a ‘go-to’ consultancy for helping clients manage complex issues and challenges and we have also been the firm that companies turn to when they want help building their reputations,” Stafford said. “We are proud of the work we have done for organisations such as the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the Better Hong Kong Foundation and the Hong Kong government and we will be renewing our focus on such challenging assignments.”

“Now we are proud to help clients such as Hong Kong Disneyland, Huawei, Foxconn tell their stories and achieve their communications objectives. We have also shown why governments turn to our team for their international economic communications work through our support to Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia, Korea and others.”

Matt re-joined B-M in Hong Kong during 2007 following five years as the Australian government’s senior policy adviser on communications reporting to several Cabinet Ministers.  He was the lead adviser for the development and implementation of sweeping regulatory reforms in that sector, including a multi-billion dollar national broadband strategy and the privatisation of Telstra, the single largest public share offer in Australia’s history.

In Australia Jones succeeds Brian West, who will be departing the firm at the end of December. “I am excited to be taking over the reins at Burson-Marsteller Australia. It’s a challenging and vibrant market that has experienced high fragmentation over the last decade and an explosion of boutique firms. Despite these changes, Burson-Marsteller has remained a firm known for senior strategic counsel, crisis communications and brand positioning,” she said.

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