Jonathan Smith to head up trade team at Cirkle

Jonathan Smith, former associate director at Clarion, is to join Cirkle as director of its 20-strong trade team on 5 December.

Smith has 15 years’ experience in trade and corporate PR, helping clients to deal with regulatory and legislative issues, as well as running category education campaigns.

He has run campaigns for multi-brand owners including JTI, Wrigley, Nestlé Confectionery, Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser.

Smith will sit on Cirkle’s management team, taking a lead role in its internal ‘Trade Excellence’ training programme, and will work across a range of the agency’s trade clients, including Nestlé Waters, Hovis and Pernod Ricard UK. He will report to Cirkle’s MD Ruth Allchurch.

Allchurch said: “We took the search for this particular role incredibly seriously as we wanted to get it right. We are very lucky to have found Jonathan and know he will be a tremendous asset to Cirkle as we continue to grow our dynamic business.

“His strategic mind and FMCG and retailer industry knowledge will help continue to build on our already healthy trade and corporate remits as part of our ‘Influence in the Round’ offering to clients.”

Cirkle’s trade and consumer clients also include Morrisons, Premier Foods, PepsiCo, GSK, the happy egg co, Mission Foods, Ferrero, Energizer, Hipp Organic and Kerry Foods.