Insight Type: News

Award-winning agency Lodestone Communications has appointed four sector-leading experts to their team of advisors, bolstering the agency’s provision across strategic communications, insight and public affairs to facilitate an enhanced offer to clients.

Lodestone has added three industry specialists, with experience across print and broadcast media, polling and public sector leadership, to the Lodestone Strategic Advisory Council. They join Tom Watson, former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in lending their sector-specific expertise in business, political analysis, and thought leadership to provide strategic counsel to Lodestone as it continues to expand its team and offering. The Council will continue to support the Lodestone team in assessing domestic and global trends and identifying avenues for long-term growth.

Sonia Sodha, a senior journalist, broadcaster, columnist, and author, has been appointed to the Council, bringing invaluable experience and drawing from the breadth of her career across the politics and media sectors. She is a former Chief Leader Writer and columnist at The Observer, a regular contributor to The Times and The New European and a prominent political broadcaster. She also brings a wealth of experience in Britain’s leading think tanks, including IPPR and Demos, alongside her direct political experience as an adviser to Ed Miliband when he was Leader of the Opposition.

Damian Lyons Lowe, Founder and Chief Executive of Survation, will also join the Strategic Advisory Council. This appointment builds on Lodestone’s longstanding partnership with Survation, working together to deliver market insights and industry-leading analysis for clients. Damian’s appointment brings 27 years of work experience within leading research environments, across technology, healthcare, financial services and political science.

Lodestone has also appointed Dr Susan Gilby, a senior leader within the health service and former CEO of the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust. Susan has worked as a healthcare senior executive since 2011, directly benefitting NHS Trusts in a range of roles. As Chief Executive of the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust, Susan deftly led the Trust through the Covid-19 pandemic, demonstrating extensive leadership and management skills that will be an asset to Lodestone’s Strategic Advisory Council.

1. Lord Watson appointed to new Lodestone Advisory Council and Senior Advisor to the business
2. Max Wind-Cowie appointed Managing Director of new Corporate and Reputation Practice
3. Suite of new opinion testing tools to be developed in partnership with Survation to serve both Corporate and Reputation and Public Affairs clients.

Five missions, six first steps, seven… dwarfs? This week Keir Starmer added ballast to his election proposition by outlining how he and his government will begin work to deliver a richer, fairer, less broken Britain. Surrounded by members of his Shadow Cabinet and emblematic endorsers (including some clients of Lodestone!), the Labour Leader was seeking to distil the intent of his five missions into specific policy deliverables.

Leading B Corps Lodestone and HermeticaBlack join forces this B Corp month

Specialist decentralised energy company HermeticaBlack and strategic communications agency Lodestone Communications are delighted to announce a new programme of work to coincide with B Corp month in March.

HermeticaBlack and Lodestone are two of the leading B Corp organisations within their respective industries. HermeticaBlack’s recent certification means they are the first decentralised energy specialist to receive B Corp status, while in 2022 Lodestone became the UK’s first specialist public affairs agency to join the global community of businesses that meet B Corp’s high standards of social and environmental impact.

Now, the two are embarking on a programme of work that will use HermeticaBlack’s expertise delivering decentralised energy projects which reduce carbon emissions and energy usage, to help benefit policymaking and wider industry practice.

On 1 February 2024, Lodestone won Medium Consultancy of the Year at the PRCA Polimonitor Public Affairs Awards – here’s how we got here!

A decade ago, we set out to create the public affairs agency we’d always wanted to see: dedicated to the social good, but smart and successful with it; boutique but influential, constantly challenging government, clients and themselves to prove that positive action brings prosperity for everyone.