LONDON — Hanbury Strategy has hired four new board directors, including former Downing Street press secretary Rosie Bate-Williams, and three associate directors, as it continues to grow its senior bench in London and Brussels.

Bate-Williams (pictured) joins the consultancy as a director after more than three years working in the No 10 communications team as press secretary to the prime minister. She was previously a communications advisor to the Conservative Party and for Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign, and before that was at Portland for four years.

Damon Poole also joins as a director, having recently worked as a special adviser to former health secretary Sajid Javid in the UK government’s Department for Health, and previously in Downing Street as Head of Broadcast. Before working in government communications, Poole was at Brunswick.

The other two new directors are Sam Baptist, previously a deputy director at the Home Office, and Thomas Pryor, who joins Hanbury in a move from his native New Zealand, where he worked at public affairs agency Sherson Willis and as a special advisor to the country’s former prime minister, John Key.

Hanbury has also appointed three new associate directors: Eline Storeide joins Hanbury after running the Westminster office of MP Tom Tugendhat and the Conservative Party chairman’s office; Felicity Handley joins from the Building Research Establishment, where she was a public affairs manager leading on built environment decarbonisation, standards and safety; and Louis Fitzherbert joins from the Department for Business, Energy and the Industrial Strategy, where he led on communications campaigns ranging from vaccines and life sciences to UK research and innovation and energy security.

The London appointments follow Hanbury making a number of senior hires and promotions within its public affairs team in Brussels last month. The recent hires bring Hanbury’s headcount to more than 100 across its London and Brussels offices for the first time.

Partner and co-founder Ameet Gill said: “Our sole focus at Hanbury is on building an exceptional team so we deliver the best possible results for our clients. Our team continues to achieve industry leading retention rates and our new business pipeline is extremely strong.

“We have invested heavily in hiring the very best talent we can find to help our clients navigate what could be an uncertain 2023. We’re excited about what we can achieve together and we have more big names joining us early next year.”

Hanbury recently partnered with the Social Mobility Foundation to provide public affairs and communications work experience to sixth-form students in the UK.