Bell Pottinger

Bell Pottinger makes its debut appearance in PR Week’s Global Agency Report Card after we relaxed the criteria slightly to allow networks with offices in just three regions, The network is made up of 50 agencies and more than 1,100 people in the UK, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Czech Republic, USA, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, South Africa, India, Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

Major internal developments in this period were the merging of Bell Pottinger Corporate & Financial business with Pelham PR to form financial PR agency Pelham Bell Pottinger, the return of internal communications expert Liam FitzPatrick from running his own agency Working Communications, and the appointment of former Conservative Party shadow cabinet member Tim Collins as MD of its UK public affairs practice.

In October the agency lost the O2 public affairs account, but there were wins to provide consolation. At the end of 2009 founder Lord Bell was able to announce that the agency had delivered the best pretax profit in its history.