This week PLMR was honoured to host the inaugural Global Communications Alliance (GCA) conference in Westminster, bringing together best in class independent agencies from around the world to share best practice, foster collaboration and discuss the challenges and opportunities facing our industry.  Attendees flew in from Canada, Argentina, the United States, France, Germany, South Africa, Kenya and the Netherlands, to spend two days planning how to maximise the value of the network for each agency’s clients and teams.

We were very lucky to hear from a series of guest speakers, including Paul Holmes, CEO of the prestigious Holmes Report and Dr Tazeeb Rajwani, Director of the Government Affairs Research Club at Cranfield School of Management, who both talked about the changing communications landscape.  Michael Zolandz, who has grown Dentons to the world’s largest network of law firms, spoke about building effective collaborative networks and Stuart Thomson drew on case studies from around the world to demonstrate how public affairs is evolving in different jurisdictions.

All agencies presented to each other about their political landscape, the work they do for their clients and some of the successful campaigns they have overseen.  We see huge value at PLMR in being a part of the GCA, a network that we co-founded, so that we can leverage multi-market global expertise for our clients.  We look forward to working ever more closely with the alliance over the next year and expanding it further into new geographies.