Lodestone announces appointment of Advisory Council member, Director for Corporate and Reputation & partnership with pollsters Survation

Award-winning agency Lodestone Communications has announced a series of appointments and partnerships designed to augment its offer to clients and provide a 360-degree service across strategic communications, insight and public affairs.

Lord Watson, former Deputy Labour Leader, former Shadow DCMS Secretary of State, and former Government Minister becomes the first member of Lodestone's new Advisory Council. The Advisory Council - to be built out - will advise the business on strategy and growth. The council will support the company in identifying long-term opportunities for growth, analysing domestic and global trends and events, and providing strategic counsel to clients on challenges and opportunities through events and thought leadership.

The Council will complement the board, which remains unchanged. Michael Murphy, ex Grayling chief, and Stuart Warriner, ex PwC partner, continue as Non-Executive Directors. Founder David Wild will continue as Chair. To support the agency’s growth, founding partner Martha Dalton will become CEO and Fran O’Leary will become Chief Strategy Officer.

Max Wind-Cowie - formerly of MHP Group and H&K (now Burson) - has been appointed Managing Director for Corporate and Reputation. He will be responsible for growing the strategic communications capabilities of the business, building on Lodestone's recent successes in developing integrated, multi-service offers for clients. As well as having held senior roles at other agencies, working with a range of large clients across multiple sectors, Max brings a wealth of communications experience from his past roles as Programmes Director at the think tank Demos and from his work in Government at the National Infrastructure Commission and on the People's Vote Campaign.

The agency has also formalised its long-standing partnership with creative market and opinion research agency, Survation. Survation and Lodestone have committed to a new relationship that will pool knowledge and resources to bring new insight products to market - starting with a new tool, combining AI and MRP methodologies to advise brands on positioning, which will be launched before Christmas.

The two agencies have worked together for a number of years most recently in developing Lodestone’s Election Hub - hosting extensive MRP polling data constituency information ahead of the summer General Election.

Lodestone was the winner of this year’s PRCA public affairs agency of the year (medium-sized) and is the only B Corp public affairs agency in the UK. The agency has seen strong year-on-year growth since 2020 and is now ranked within the top 20 public affairs agencies in the UK as listed in PR Week Top 150.

Martha Dalton, CEO said:

“We couldn’t be more excited to formalise our years-long partnership with Survation and to continue to elevate the service we deliver for our clients and partners. We look forward to continuing to develop our product offering for our clients, delivering corporate communications and political strategy that is truly data-led.”

Fran O'Leary, CSO, said:

“It’s great to have both Lord Watson and Max strengthening our top team as we continue to grow as an agency. Their appointments build upon the Lodestone Board’s strong foundation of experience and will help us to continue to deliver valuable strategy and advice to our clients. We greatly admire the wealth of insight they bring and look forward to welcoming them as part of the team.”

Lord Watson, said: “I am delighted to join Lodestone's Advisory Council at such an exciting time for the agency. Lodestone's innovative approach to strategic insight and delivering impactful work for its clients resonates strongly with my own experiences.

I look forward to supporting the team in maintaining their continued growth and success, helping to navigate the challenges faced by a fast-growing and agile communications company."

Max Wind-Cowie, MD Corporate and Reputation, said: “I’m thrilled to be rejoining Lodestone at this exciting time of growth for the agency. I’ve long admired the way that Lodestone combines expertise across the worlds of politics and media to hone highly impactful, imaginative campaigns. The opportunity to steer the new Corporate and Reputation practice, as the agency invests in new talent, partnerships and capabilities to drive growth and better serve clients, is hugely exciting.”

Damian Lyons-Lowe, CEO of Survation, said: “Survation and Lodestone were both founded as challengers and have both enjoyed great success through our commitment to innovation in our sectors. We’ve worked closely together for the best part of a decade and we’re excited to be working with Lodestone on a suite of new products and services for clients under our new, formal partnership. It brings together two companies obsessed with solving complex problems for our clients and with investing in the best new tools to do that.”

Lodestone works across strategy, public affairs, corporate and reputation, campaigns and research.