With over 26 years experience in public affairs, Peter Bingle is one of the most prominent figures in the industry. He has advised the CEOs and MDs of some of the largest companies in the world and helped them navigate through a wide variety of major reputational crises – including McDonald’s at the onset of the BSE crisis, the Police Federation through the Sheehy inquiry and, most recently Damon Buffini and Permira in the face of concerted attacks on the private equity industry.

Peter has devoted his professional career to fostering a constructive and beneficial relationship between government and business. He is adamant that there has to be a strong relationship between public affairs practitioners and government advisers – good public affairs helps government to do its job properly and effectively.

Peter describes public affairs as “probably the best job in politics”, in which participants have the joy of seeing how government really works and the pleasure of working with some of the most powerful and influential people in the country – whilst not being stifled by a party divide in the formation of relationships. Indeed, Peter is one of the best connected consultants around, with good friends on all sides of the political spectrum.

Peter started in public affairs in 1981, at the Independent Schools Information Service. He joined Westminster Strategy in 1987 as a consultant, rising to Director level after four years. In 1993, he was appointed to run the public affairs division of the Communications Group. He took up the reins at GPC (now Fleishman-Hillard) in 1999 and stabilised the group in the wake of the Derek Draper affair, which had rocked the entire industry. He became Managing Director of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs in June 2001 and turned BPPA into the most successful public affairs firm in the industry. Peter moved to Chairman of BPPA in January 2007, handing over day to day running of the company in order to devote more of his time to his first love – helping clients achieve their commercial goals through the implementation of targeted, long-term public affairs strategies.

Peter sees the biggest challenge for business in the coming years as being to understand that politics and politicians are continually changing and that there is a need to plan for the future. It is a challenge that he is excited about helping his clients meet.

Aside from public affairs, Peter’s passions are opera, music and fine dining.

Peter is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.