Edelman UK, the global communications firm, has appointed Luciana Berger as Managing Director, Advocacy and Public Affairs.
Luciana will join the Corporate Affairs leadership team led by Hugh Taggart, General Manager, and will sit alongside Jeremy Lucas, Corporate Reputation and John Kiely, Managing Director of Edelman UK’s financial communications offer, Smithfield.
Before joining Edelman, Luciana served as the Member of Parliament for Liverpool Wavertree for almost a decade. During her time in the House of Commons, she held prominent front bench and back bench roles, and was an award-winning campaigner, who secured a number of significant changes to legislation.
Luciana was the Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Shadow Minister for Public Health and Shadow Cabinet Member for Mental Health between 2010 and 2016. In 2018 she was the People’s Choice Parliamentary Backbencher of the Year. Latterly Luciana was appointed Liberal Democrat Shadow Spokesperson for Health, Social Care and Wellbeing.
Prior to entering politics Luciana held a number of senior roles in business and the public sector, including at Accenture - where she advised the Prime Minister’s delivery unit, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport - and at the NHS Confederation and Labour Friends of Israel.
In 2019 she featured in Vogue 25 – British Vogue’s list of the 25 'high-powered and visionary women whose work is shaping Britain’s future'
Hugh Taggart, General Manager, said: “In Luciana we have a leader, a campaigner and an advocate with a whip smart political mind, an outstanding record of delivery, and that rarest of attributes - respect across the political divide.
Luciana’s shadow ministerial experience - in particular in Public Health and Climate Change - will be invaluable to our clients as they seek to navigate a raft of societal changes, challenges and concerns. Luciana embodies our approach to action-based leadership, is widely recognised for her tenacity as a campaigner and will bring a dynamic approach to how we deliver integrated advocacy and public affairs programmes for our clients.”
Luciana Berger, Managing Director, said: “I’m thrilled to be joining Edelman UK to lead the advocacy and public affairs team. As Edelman has evidenced, there has never been a more important time in my lifetime for governments, companies, NGOs and the media to build trust. People now rightly expect the institutions around them to educate, advocate for change but above all else to lead by example. I can’t wait to deliver campaigns which bring together the formidable political, research, creative and digital capability from within Edelman, to make a difference across the UK and beyond."
