Alan Parker
Alan Parker Job: founder and senior partner, Brunswick Industry: public relations Staff: 275 Age: 44 Star in: ascendant
The Guardian reports:
- As with any great PR man, Alan Parker's influence far outweighs his visibility. He founded financial PR consultancy Brunswick in 1987 and it is now accepted as the most powerful agencies in the City. Brunswick advises around one-third of the FTSE's top 100 firms including British Airways, Marks & Spencer and Marconi on their relationship with investors... Mr Parker's trust owns 88% of Brunswick's Channel Islands holding company, Wynnstay, giving him a vice-like grip on the agency. His personal assets of £6m, combined with a company stake worth an estimated £114m, pushed him into 268th place in the Sunday Times Rich List alongside Sir Tim Rice and Sir Martin Sorrell. The son of former British Rail chairman Sir Peter Parker, Mr Parker is renowned as a master salesman and pulled off a notable coup earlier this year when he recruited former Bill Clinton aide James Rubin, bolstering the agency's prowess in political affairs. However, his agency has run into some flak of late. It has been criticised for paying its junior staff badly and its slowness to expand internationally. Source: [1]
Parker was awarded the IPR's president's medal and made an honourary fellow in 2002. His peers described him and his company in the following terms:
- Alan Parker is our industry's most distinguished practitioner. He has reinvented financial communications and has made Brunswick the pre-eminent business of its time. This award recognises that remarkable record. I am delighted to welcome him as an honorary fellow of the IPR. (from the Institute of Public Relations website at [2])
According to the Evening Standard:
- astute and lucky financial operator. His career has been meteoric. He first went into the City in 1981 to work in financial PR for Brian Basham at Broad Street Associates. Just six years later, he set up Brunswick on his own, initially using the Parker parents' front room as an office. It swiftly became the City's top PR firm, employed by companies such as BA, ICI and Barclays Bank to fend off or expedite takeovers and mergers, and was even taken on by Martha Stewart in an attempt to polish up her image during the ImClone scandal in 2002.[3]
Affiliations
- Board of Governors for the Royal Shakespeare Company,
- Holland Park School
- Demos trustee.
Previous employment:
- worked at the PR firm Broadstreet, learning the trade from the top City PR man Brian Basham. More than 100 clients, including ICI, Glaxo, Barclays (ref?).
Parker was described as 'the most powerful PR man in City, and the City is where PR men exercise more power than anywhere else'.(ref?) He is said to have owned over 90% of Brunswick, which he founded in 1987, and is worth many many millions (one estimate in 1998 put his stake in Brunswick at £30m (almost $50m) (ref?). Given the boom years that PR has enjoyed in the last decade it is likely that his personal wealth is much greater. In 2002 his stake in the company was worth an estimated £114m! Feb 2004 - Limited Liability Partnership - registered in Delaware.
Directorships
Notes
- ^ SLATER L.(2005)'The fabulous Parkerboys,' Evening Standard (London), Oct 14.
