Guto Harri, ex-BBC correspondent and former Downing Street director of communications under Boris Johnson, has been appointed UK senior adviser at Bully Pulpit International (BPI) Group.
He will support clients “in managing the complex set of issues at the intersection of politics, media and communications”, the agency announced today.
Harri started in the part-time role this week and reports to Matt Carter, who was appointed BPI’s UK market lead last month.
Carter, the founder of campaigns and research firm Message House and ex-UK chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, said: “In this moment when organisations face a complex myriad of challenges, they need advisors that really get the policy landscape, the media agenda and comms capabilities. Guto has worked at the highest level across all three and he is a fantastic addition to our strong and growing UK team.”
Harri’s appointment comes just months after the agency announced that Jo-ann Robertson, former chief executive of global markets at Ketchum, will join as president of the BPI Group in Europe this year. The agency has a team of 65 consultants based in the UK.
Commenting on his new role, Harri said: “BPI is already delivering creative and dynamic campaigns that help drive change for their clients, and I hope to add my own communications expertise from my time in front-line politics and news media. I’m also excited to be part of a growing global agency that’s ambitious for the future.”
He told In.Comms: “After decades in journalism, politics and the corporate world I am extremely fortunate to be able to combine some punditry and presenting with advisory roles that allow me to share my experience with a range of clients who are seeking to navigate those worlds.”
The agency, which has its headquarters in Washington, DC, was founded in 2009 by Andrew Bleeker, who was the lead digital marketing strategist on both of President Obama’s election campaigns. Its global president is former White House communications director Ben LaBolt.
The BPI Group has a “sensational line-up of people who have proved themselves at the highest level in public life as well as in the commercial arena and I’m thrilled to be joining such a high calibre team who are taking consultancy to another level”, Harri commented.
“It is hard to imagine any in-house position that offers such an impressive line-up and such a fascinating range of challenges,” he added.
Harri describes himself on his LinkedIn profile as a “well-connected, impactful and battle-hardened communications expert with experience in some of the toughest roles in politics and corporate life”.
He spent almost 20 years at the BBC, where he was chief political correspondent, before switching to comms in 2008 when he joined Fleishman-Hillard as a senior policy adviser. Harri went on to serve as Boris Johnson’s spokesman and director of external affairs during the ex-Prime Minister’s first stint as London Mayor, from 2008 to 2012.
He subsequently worked at News UK as director of comms and corporate affairs before leaving in 2015 to join Virgin Media owner Liberty Global as managing director of external communications.
Harri was reunited with Johnson in February 2022, when he was appointed director of comms at Downing Street. He left the role after Johnson stepped down in September 2022, and was subsequently awarded a CBE for “political and public service” in Johnson’s resignation honours list.
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