Headland has made two senior hires that further strengthen its advisory capabilities for clients.
Highly experienced leadership communications consultant Jane Hadden joins the firm as a Partner. For the past eight years, she has prepared CEOs and senior executives for their most important moments of communication, including market announcements and moments of major change, select committee appearances, keynote speeches, and media interviews during crisis situations.
Jane joins from Teneo, where as managing director she worked across the world advising executives from Coca-Cola, Facebook, McDonald’s, Shell, O2, National Grid and Google among others. Prior to Teneo, she worked in Edelman’s strategic media unit.
Jane began her career as a journalist at the BBC. Over a ten-year period, she worked as a Senior Producer for flagship programmes including the Six and Ten O’Clock News and BBC Breakfast. She also served as a correspondent reporting for BBC World News. Jane began her BBC career working in regional television and radio.
Headland has also hired Lindsay Dunford as a Director. A financial and corporate communications expert, Lindsay was most recently head of corporate communications for FTSE 250 property company, Hammerson. She led communications on the company’s acquisition of Grand Central in Birmingham and a €1.85 billion portfolio of assets in Dublin which marked Hammerson’s entry to the Irish market.
Prior to Hammerson, Lindsay worked for a decade in the financial communications team at Citigate Dewe Rogerson. She advised on a number of IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and broader capital markets activity for the likes of Morrisons, Poundland and Hotel Chocolat.
Chris Salt, CEO of Headland, said: “It’s a pleasure to welcome two people with exceptional board-level advisory skills. Jane has a fantastic track record working with senior executives in some of the most testing environments imaginable. Her ability to counsel c-suite members both on their message and their delivery of it is a rare skill.
“To be able to add Lindsay’s combination of top level in-house and agency experience at the same time is brilliant news for Headland. She has worked at the sharp end of corporate and financial communications for well over a decade and knows exactly how to deliver high quality, impactful advice.”
Jane Hadden commented: “Everyone is talking about the waves Headland is making in the industry and I’m really excited to be joining this team of talented, hard-working people. I can’t wait to add my skills and expertise as a leadership communications coach into the mix.
“The pressure on today’s CEOs and leaders to be strong, natural communicators is more intense than it’s ever been and I’m looking forward to supporting Headland’s portfolio of clients through their most important, high-stakes moments.”
Jane and Lindsay’s appointments follow several other senior hires for Headland in recent months. In September, former JWT Global Planning Director Rob Alexander joined as a Partner, while in August Headland hired 10 Downing Street’s head of strategic communications, Ben Mascall, and ex-policy adviser to Chuka Umunna, Gabriel Huntley.