Philip Dewhurst

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Philip Dewhurst

Philip Dewhurst is a well-known heavyweight lobbyist, currently senior partner at The College Group, which he joined in October 2009 after three years as head of public relations at Gazprom. [1]

Background

Dewhurst was British Nuclear Fuels's Group Corporate Affairs Director from April 2001 and Chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association for two years (Dec 2004 until Dec 2006), and a board member for three years.

Ex-President of the Institute of Public Relations. He is a Visiting Fellow of the Media School of Bournemouth University. Before joining BNFL, Philip was UK Chief Executive of Shandwick International.[2]

He has also been chairman of Dewhurst Consulting since 2009. Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

Spreading the Message Via Third Parties

Interviewed by PR Week in February 2006, Dewhurst, admitted that BNFL had been using the classsic PR technique of using a third party to push the nuclear message. He said that it had taken considerable effort to persuade the public to reconsider the nuclear option. Said Dewhurst: "five years ago the reputation of nuclear was at an all-time low. MI5 said a terrorist attack on Sellafield with a hijacked aircraft 'could not be prevented', and that destroyed public confidence."

Dewhurst added: "Now we use a company called Strategic Awareness, which uses in-depth research to help us develop our message. We spread that via third-party opinion because the public would be suspicious if we started ramming pro-nuclear messages down their throats".[3]

Affiliations


References

  1. Alec Mattinson, Russian firm Gazprom's Philip Dewhurst takes College Hill role, prweek.com, Friday, 23 October 2009, acc 25 June 2012
  2. Nuclear Industry Association, website
  3. Alex Black, "Issues Management: How Nuclear Power got its Groove Back", PR Week, March 2, 2006.