LONDON — Ketchum has appointed of Chris Martin (pictured) as director of public affairs. Reporting into Jamie Robertson, MD of Ketchum London’s corporate reputation team, Martin will take a lead role in providing strategic counsel to clients and driving growth in government relations and strategic public affairs. He joins Ketchum from Hume Brophy, where he was director of public affairs.

STOCKHOLM – Securitas AB has hired Helena Andreas as SVP brand, communications and public relations from February 2019. She succeeds Gisela Lindstrand, who left the global security services company in May. Andreas had been head of group marketing and communications at Nordea since June 2014, and previously held senior positions with Vodafone and Tesco.

LONDON — Hill+Knowlton Strategies London has appointed Eleanor Sullivan as director of creative strategy. She was most recently executive director of planning at Golin, where she led the creative planning team working across the company’s consumer, social, corporate and technology practices for clients including Unilever, nPower, Merck, ABInbev, Diageo and Mondelez.

LONDON — Hanover Communications has welcomed former government adviser Nick King back to the business as a senior adviser. King first worked with Hanover in 2012, following a period at the Conservative Research Department. King has also worked in the sports industry, with spells in the US and Saudi Arabia, and is also currently the head of business at the Centre for Policy Studies.

OSLO — Telenor Group has appointed Anne Kvam as EVP and chief corporate affairs officer from November. She joins from KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS, where she was head of responsible investments, and succeeds Wenche Agerup, who is heading up a new unit in Telenor Group. Kvam will become a member of Telenor's group executive management team, reporting to president and CEO Sigve Brekke.

LONDON — Recruitment and executive search specialist VMAGroup has expanded its international team with the appointment of senior communications specialists Daniella Soesman in the Netherlands and Liesl Weber in Belgium. Soesman has worked at multinational organisations including RBS, ABN AMRO and latterly VIVAT. Weber joins from Amcor, where she was communications director for the EMEA region.

LONDON — Lewis has launched three new visual cloud-based analytics dashboards to provide clients with a deeper level of reporting, insights, business outcome measurement and proactive campaign management, as part of a “significant” investment in its Lewis Analytics proposition. The agency is also introducing new services to help clients make more of their channels and content.

LONDON — Hudson Sandler has hired Sue Hutchinson as an associate partner in its brands practice. Hutchinson joins after 17 years at Grayling where she had led the British Airways account across 56 markets in Europe and Asia-Pacific since 2013.

LONDON — The International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) has launched a Partner University Programme to connect academia and communications practitioners around the world. ICCO plans to work with universities that offer PR and communications qualifications, including providing online training, promoting international work placements and student exchanges, and offering speaking opportunities for academics.

LONDON — The management committee of the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) has voted to recommend to its members that the organisation should merge with the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA). The final decision will be taken by the APPC membership at an extraordinary general meeting later this year.