Welcome!

Today I open the doors of my new consultancy, Chris Cartwright Communications. 
 
Its focus – to build and protect reputations – is not necessarily new but how I want this consultancy to do this is new.
 
Many of the multinationals have headquarters in Switzerland (it has the world’s highest concentrations of MNC).  My home town Geneva is the world’s centre for commodities trading and private banking. NGOs and international organisations are clustered here (Geneva alone has 250 NGOs and 95 international organisations).  Nearby Lausanne is home to over 50 of the world’s sports federations.  All of these organisations need communications support.
 
For their global or regional work, they have a choice: either use London based agencies due to the almost total absence of ‘global agencies’ here with experienced English-speaking consultants, or use local agencies who often lack the right global experience.  Many choose London agencies but many have told me what they really want is a senior communications resource, based locally who can advise them, and be on hand when needed.  They want the strategic chops of a London agency – but here.  And ideally, they want the experienced person actually working on their business, not just turning up at meetings occasionally.
 
So, the immediate niche for my new consultancy is to offer clients strategic consulting from senior communications professionals who have worked at the  world’s best-known agencies, are locally based and who will execute the work themselves flawlessly.
 
The second niche, however, is that we will be very C suite focused.  We want to offer services that senior executives, based at Swiss located headquarters, need to make use of in the reputational mix of what you do, what you say and what people say about you:

1. What you do: helping build Purpose programs that are authentic to the strategic, operational realities of a business but which make the business more than an entity solely based on the bottom line
2. What you say: helping C-suite executives articulate their Purpose; helping them become better storytellers; creating thought leadership programs; developing their own digital strategy and coaching them on how to engage with the media
3. What people say about you: helping executives with personal brand building via speaker podiums, social platforms or via engaging with the word’s top business journalists at the Economist or the FT
   
   

Happily, I will not be doing this all on my own.  I will be tapping into a network of great people who are also independent consultants in their own right: Matthias Lüfkens, former EMEA head of Burson, Cohn & Wolfe’s digital practice whom I worked with for years when I was MD of BursonMarsteller in Geneva. Aimee DuBrule, former global head of communications at Nestle CPW who will assist on C level engagement, internal communications and Purpose projects, and Michael Dempsey,  journalist for BBC News and contributor to the Telegraph, Financial Times with whom I have done countless media trainings in Geneva and London.
 
I have, for a long time, wanted to start my own consultancy business – and I am excited about the journey ahead.  If you’d like to know more, please get in touch at chris@chriscartwrightcomms.com.

Chris Cartwright