Speyside hires Edelman’s Chris Dobson

Speyside Corporate Relations, an emerging markets corporate affairs consultancy, has hired Edelman’s Chris Dobson to manage the company’s “rapid growth” as president in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Dobson spent three years as EMEA head of emerging markets at Edelman. Previously, he was CEO of Central European consultancy Mmd after its sale to Huntsworth in 2006.

He will work alongside Speyside founders Alistair McLeish and Ian Herbison to build on the consultancy‘s growth in emerging markets.

Dobson said: “I am thrilled to be part of Speyside’s continued development and growth in such exciting emerging markets worldwide. This is a whole new era, of course, from the previous time we worked together, but the challenge is not dissimilar. In increasingly unstable times, our clients require strong support and counsel across a host of complex, sometimes opaque, high growth markets.”

Herbison added: “We are delighted Chris has come on board – he is an outstanding leader with a strong track record of building a consultancy offering across complex and varied markets. While our Latin American network continues to grow exponentially, we are also seeing increasing demand for our support in other emerging markets, across Africa and more established markets such as Russia, Turkey, Poland and others. These are markets where Chris’ vast experience will be invaluable.”