BRUSSELS—Burson-Marsteller was among the first of the giant US public relations players to establish itself on the European scene, opening its first office (in Geneva) half a century ago and adding an operation in London in 1967, but when Jeremy Galbraith took over as chief executive for the EMEA region in 2007, the firm was still recovering from a dismal decade during which it had been overtaken by several fast-growing competitors.
In the five years since then, the firm has enjoyed an impressive resurgence. Several of Burson’s largest accounts—Danone, de Beers, SAP, Shell, Sony Ericsson and others—are led from Europe. The firm has expanded its footprint in the region with a series of acquisitions and exclusive partnerships: 12-office Middle Eastern agency Asda’a in 2008; Russian independent Mikhailov & Partners in 2009; South African market leader Arcay Communications in 2011; and earlier this year Finnish firm Pohjoisranta. And BM was named our EMEA Consultancy of the Year in 2009 and our Public Affairs Consultancy of the Year in 2011.
For all of those achievements, Jeremy Galbraith will receive one of our 2012 SABRE Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement at this year’s SABRE Awards dinner, to be held in Brussels on May 31.
Galbraith currently serves as CEO of Burson-Marsteller in Europe, Middle East and Africa, is a member of Burson-Marsteller's global leadership team and chair of the global public affairs practice. He was previously the CEO of Burson-Marsteller in Brussels from 2000 to 2007 having first joined the firm in 1995 to head up the UK public affairs practice.
Prior to that, he had been deputy managing director of Market Access, a leading Westminster political consultancy and a director of its sister company in Brussels. He began his career working in the House of Commons for a senior Conservative member of the Trade & Industry Select Committee.
Over the years, he has worked on high-level public policy and corporate reputation challenges in a wide variety of sectors including agriculture, airlines, alcoholic beverages, animal health, chemicals, cosmetics, employment, energy, environment, financial services, food and beverages, health, media, packaging, pharmaceuticals, sport, telecommunications, transport and water.
He was educated at Leeds University, from which he graduated in law. He fought a London seat for the Conservative Party at the 1992 general election.