Director of Communications - Lee Whitehill
Lee is Director of Communications for Whitehouse Communications a leading political communications and media relations company operating in the UK and EU.
He has nearly twenty years experience in commercial consultancy and has worked with some of the world's best known companies including Airbus, Leonardo, Babcock, Nissan and Aston Martin as well as global brands such as Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Budweiser.
His experience includes leading the London public affairs practice of Hill and Knowlton, a WPP top 10 global PR agency, and ten years as a Director and Group Head of Marketing with Interel Group, a Brussels based public affairs consultancy with offices across North America, Europe and Asia. He specialises in advising clients on reputation, political and government affairs, media strategy and crisis communications. More recently he has been Communications Director for the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU) which is an affiliate organisation consisting of four unions, Unite, GMB, Community and Prospect, running campaigns on behalf of 100,000 members in complex manufacturing and defence.
Lee has also founded his own consultancy specialising in digital campaigns and training and has delivered crisis communications workshops for the UK trade body for theme parks and visitor attractions and Effective Political Communications training for members of the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA).
A winner of the ‘Private Sector Public Affairs Campaign’ of the year, he was recently nominated for ‘Best Use of Digital’ by the Maritime Foundation Media Awards. He is a former Labour Party staffer and worked on the election campaigns in 1997, 2001 and 2005.
He began his career in London as Head of Campaigns and Media for the trade union, Unite, where he was the official print and broadcast spokesperson working for two general secretaries across a range of national campaigns and disputes, including the closure of Heathrow following wildcat industrial action.