Matt Peacock joins Blurred as Partner
Seasoned multinational corporate affairs director Matt Peacock has joined Blurred as a Partner. He will provide specialist counsel to clients on ESG (environment, social, governance) risk, sustainability, social purpose and corporate transparency. He will also advise clients on corporate and financial communications strategy.
Matt joins Blurred after a 20-year career in senior leadership roles with some of the world's largest multinational corporations. During his most recent tenure – as Group Director of Corporate Affairs at Vodafone Group – he established one of the leading global corporate human rights and transparency programmes and created the Group's global sustainable business framework aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He was also a founding influence behind the Blueprint for Better Business social purpose movement.
Matt will also oversee Blurred’s Consulting Cohort, a group of deep specialists and world-renowned experts in fields ranging from climate change impact and human rights risk mitigation to sector-specific crisis management strategy and M&A/activist defence financial communications. Blurred’s cohort model – also featuring a Creative Cohort – helps deliver on its ‘world-class consulting meets world-class creative’ proposition and supports its purpose of bringing depth to an industry categorised by the superficial.
Says Nik Govier, CEO + Founder of Blurred: “From when we first met at the end of 2018, it was simply a question of when and not if. Matt has deeply relevant experience from his years in some of the most demanding and complex roles in the global communications industry. He is also strongly aligned with our values and purpose. In this blurred world - where the best corporate work should be deeply creative and the best creative work should help build corporate reputation - Matt is an ideal partner.”
Says Matt Peacock: “The best business leaders look at risks and opportunities holistically, seeking the perspectives of multiple professional functions to get to the right answer. Sadly, in my experience much of the consultancy world has struggled to keep pace, with insufficient expertise to shape broader outcomes beyond a specialist or niche contribution. Blurred has been designed from the outset to break away from that model. It is the most interesting and innovative advisory business I've come across for years.”
In September 2019, Blurred made a commitment to work only with organisations and brands that are making an active contribution to at least one of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Matt has an extensive background in international corporate and financial communications leadership (including through multiple transactions with a cumulative value of more than $230 billion) and in leading corporate responses to high-profile and complex international issues and crises. He is a veteran of the telecommunications and technology industries, with a career spanning dial-up internet, the dotcom boom, the establishment of the UK communications regulator Ofcom (where he was a founding member of the leadership team) and the launch of 3G, 4G and 5G mobile services and the ‘Internet of Things’. He has also worked in the energy sector, leading international communications at FTSE10 exploration and production company BG Group (subsequently acquired by Royal Dutch Shell).
Regularly ranked as one of the communications industry's leading professionals and winner of multiple awards, in addition to his role at Blurred he will continue to lecture on ESG, sustainability, social purpose and crisis management at international business schools including Henley Business School (where he is a Visiting Fellow), London Business School and IESE. Prior to entering corporate life, he was a staff reporter with ‘The World At One’ on BBC Radio.