Scott Brown
British communications executive; joint chief executive / director of Breakthrough Media Network (later Zinc Network); former Bell Pottinger information-operations contractor in Baghdad, Mogadishu and Nairobi; Conservative Party staffer
| Scott Wayne Brown | |
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| Nationality | British |
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| Occupation | Communications executive; strategic communications; director |
| Known for | Joint chief executive and director of Breakthrough Media Network / Zinc Network; former Bell Pottinger Special Projects / information-operations work in Baghdad (with Richard Chalk), Mogadishu and Nairobi |
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Scott Wayne Brown is a British communications executive and joint chief executive / director of Breakthrough Media Network (later renamed Zinc Network). He was appointed director of Breakthrough Media Network Ltd (company 06651251) on 17 August 2012. The company was incorporated in 2008, renamed Breakthrough Media Network Ltd in 2012, and renamed Zinc Network Limited on 2 March 2020. Brown and co-director Robert Stephen Elliott (appointed 2008) were described in 2016 as directors in their thirties who had attended the same school in Essex. Brown had previously worked for the Conservative Party and for Bell Pottinger’s information-operations team.[1][2]
Bell Pottinger and earlier career
Before Breakthrough, Brown worked for the Conservative Party and then for Bell Pottinger’s information-operations / Special Projects team. A later account of his CV records classified work for Bell Pottinger in Mogadishu, Nairobi and Baghdad between June 2005 and July 2007. This overlapped with the period in which Richard Chalk (later head of RICU) also worked for Bell Pottinger on information operations in Baghdad. Elliott was a former reality-television producer. The Guardian described Breakthrough’s offices near Waterloo as having locked doors and CCTV; Richard Chalk, then head of RICU, was described as an occasional visitor to Breakthrough’s edit suites. The firm told the paper it was “enormously proud” to help community groups “confront extremism.”[1]
Breakthrough / Zinc
Breakthrough specialised in producing digital campaign materials for governments, non-profits and inter-governmental organisations, with a stated goal to “strengthen society and inspire positive social change.” It was the principal external contractor for RICU’s deniable counter-narrative “products,” including campaigns such as #MakingAStand (Inspire), Help for Syria, Families Matter and others. On 16 March 2018 Brown and Elliott formed a separate Zinc Network Limited (company 11259840), which was dissolved in January 2020 without filing accounts. On 2 March 2020 Breakthrough Media Network Ltd itself took the Zinc name. A government supplier listing had already described Breakthrough as “trading as” Zinc. Brown remains a director / joint chief executive of the Zinc entity. The company has received substantial UK government contracts for strategic communications work linked to counter-extremism and related programmes.[2][1]
See also
- Breakthrough Media Network
- Zinc Network
- Research, Information and Communications Unit
- Richard Chalk
- Robert Stephen Elliott
- Bell Pottinger
- Inspire
- Sara Khan
External links
- The Guardian, 2 May 2016 (“Inside Ricu…”)
- Companies House: Breakthrough Media Network Ltd / Zinc Network Limited (06651251)
- Breakthrough / Zinc website and archived pages