LONDON — Consumer agency Fanclub PR has strengthened its leadership and offer across corporate and sustainability communications with the appointment of a new director to lead its specialist Humankind Comms practice.

Tessa Curtis (pictured, left) brings more than 25 years’ experience in senior roles in agency and in-house teams and as a director of Fanclub will focus on building the corporate, B2B and sustainability communications practice.

Curtis has held leadership roles at Weber Shandwick and Grayling as  well as running her own consultancy, and has worked with clients including Coca Cola, Benetton Group, Clearpay, Intel, IBM, Odgers Berndtson, Legal & General and The World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

As head of group PR and media relations at FTSE-100 gaming group Entain, Curtis led on its responsibility and growth story. She has also helped to launch a non-profit to help women and girls in Afghanistan and has led on PR strategy to highlight the societal impacts of science for Oxford University Physics.

Fanclub founder Adrian Ma (pictured, centre) said: “We started working with Tessa on a consultant basis last year and were blown away by what she brought to help solve challenges that our clients face.

"As the appetite for businesses to be better grows, and stronger regulation and scrutiny of ESG practices comes into play, more companies will need to transform to be more sustainable and inclusive. With this comes a great opportunity for our Humankind team with Tessa at its helm to develop and build further our capabilities and offer to clients”.

At the same time Paul Lucas (pictured, right), who leads Fanclub’s creative offer, becomes a partner, working alongside to take the business into its next phase of growth.

Over the past year, Humankind Comms has worked with clients including Formula E, deforestation NGO Global Canopy and data intelligence and ESG tracking company Permutable AI.