Sandpiper Adds Public Affairs Directors In Dubai And Singapore
Sandpiper has appointed Aliyah Dar as associate director of public affairs in Dubai and Isabelle Trick to the same role in Singapore.
- Consultancy: Sandpiper, a strategic communications and public affairs firm
- Aliyah Dar: associate director, public affairs, Dubai
- Her background: a senior strategy role at a Dubai investment firm, more than 10 years in UK government including chief of staff to His Majesty's Trade Commissioner for the Middle East and Pakistan, and leading UAE operations for Global Counsel
- Isabelle Trick: associate director, public affairs, Singapore
- Her background: directing Investor Services and Global Macro projects at Global Counsel, and running an international non-profit
What Sandpiper Is Building
A policy practice in two hubs at once. Kelly Johnston, chief operating officer of Sandpiper, said public policy is now one of the defining factors shaping how businesses across Asia Pacific and the Middle East grow and protect their reputations.
The detail worth noting is that both hires come from Global Counsel, the policy advisory. Recruiting two people from the same firm into the same title in two markets is a deliberate transplant of a way of working, not two separate appointments that happen to have landed together.
What The Two Markets Need
Different things. Dar said the Middle East is undergoing extraordinary transformation, creating significant opportunities for organisations that can engage thoughtfully with government priorities. Trick said Singapore sits at the centre of the region's policy conversations, and that clients increasingly need advisers who can connect the dots between regulation, reputation and investment.
That second formulation is the more useful one for communications firms generally. Regulation and reputation used to be separate departments with separate budgets, and the case being made here is that clients no longer buy them that way.
More on the consultancy at sandpipercomms.com. More news.