LONDON — The UK prime minister’s deputy press secretary, Stephanie Lis, is leaving Downing Street for a new role at Hanover Communications as head of campaigns. Lis, who was previously head of communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs and a special adviser at the Department for Exiting the European Union, will join Hanover later this year, reporting to corporate managing director Gary Cleland.

LONDON — Stuart Williamson is to become chief corporate affairs officer at The Jockey Club, which stages British horseracing events including the Cheltenham Festival, the Randox Grand National and the Cazoo Derby. Williamson joins after 13 years at Nationwide Building Society, where he was latterly director of communications; he previously worked for communications consultancies including Grayling. In his new role, Williamson will be responsible for all external and internal communications and reputation management. He succeeds Scott Bowers, who has left the organisation after 12 years to launch Spectacle Partners, a reputation advisory firm working in sport and entertainment.

LONDON — BCW has appointed Sarah McDonald as a senior director in its London healthcare team. McDonald joins from Pfizer’s global commercial team, where she led behaviour change communications, corporate reputation benchmarking and best practice initiatives including post-pandemic customer hybrid engagement. She previously held a number of agency roles working across digital pharma communications, patient advocacy, social responsibility and public health in the UK and Australia, and has led global and regional campaigns for clients including Roche, Astellas, Janssen and Public Health England.

LONDON — Halpern has appointed Ottilie Ratcliffe as its first creative director. Ratcliffe will lead the agency’s creative output across its consumer and digital divisions, working with clients including Google, Co-op, Headspace and Five Guys. She joins Halpern from Milk & Honey, which she joined in October last year as global creative director and partner. Ratcliffe previously worked at The Romans and Mischief.

LONDON — Hill+Knowlton Strategies has hired Dr. Zac Posada-Baynham as head of behavioural science and Nadine Rose-Smith as a behavioural science consultant. Both join the agency’s data team. Posada-Baynham has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where he researched environmental behaviour change using experimental methods, and previously worked at the Behavioural Insights Team (known as the ‘Nudge Unit’). Rose-Smith is an organisational psychologist, joining from the UK Civil Service.

LONDON — Current Global has hired Jess Hinton and Adeva Merela to its UK healthcare team as account director and senior associate respectively. Hinton (pictured, left) joins the agency from MHP with five years’ experience in the healthcare sector across the pharmaceutical, health technology and advocacy sectors. Merela (right) has joined from IPG sister agency DNA, where she worked on medical communications and PR programmes.

LONDON — Brand building, communications and analytics agency Boldspace has appointed Dan Pillay to lead its data and analytics platform, BoldLens. Pillay brings 12 years’ experience across data, analytics and scaling SaaS (software-as-a-service) platforms, and previously led CampaignHero, the integrated advertising campaign platform.

LONDON — Highbourne Group, the owner of UK plumbing and heating merchants City Plumbing, Plumbworld and PTS, has appointed Liz Forte as its chief marketing officer. Forte has worked in-house for brands including Merlin, Starbucks and Sony, and joins the business from food contract giant Compass Group. In her new role she will be responsible for developing and overseeing the marketing and brand strategy to support commercial performance.