‘It’s a feeding frenzy’: US consultancy scoops up dozens of senior Global Counsel staff
A little-known American advisory firm is poised to hire up to a quarter of Global Counsel’s senior leadership team, amid a “feeding frenzy” that has broken out for top staff left jobless by the ignominious collapse of the Peter Mandelson-founded lobbying group.
Washington-headquartered Capstone expects to confirm as many as 20 senior hires in the near future, Morning Wire can reveal, as part of a concerted push from the shop’s leadership to plug the gap left by Global Counsel in the UK advisory market, after a client exodus forced it to shutter operations last month.
It has already snapped up six UK-based political advisers, including Global Counsel’s head of European corporate advisory, Daniel Capparelli and EU healthcare lead, Emma Eatwell. It has also hired an additional trio of consultants in Brussels which leadership hope will be joined by more recruits, Morning Wire understands.
The Mandelson-founded Global Counsel had been one of London’s most respected political consultancies before emails released in the so-called Epstein files showed the sex trafficker had played a prominent role in the agency’s infancy, advising on strategy and potential clients.
References to the agency appeared over 800 times in exchanges between Epstein and his associates that were published by the US Department of Justice in January. Mandelson and his co-founder Benjamin Wegg-Prosser were revealed as having sought the advice and network of the sex offender between 2010 and 2012, years after he was convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
The revelations plunged the agency, which as well as lobbying ministers on behalf of clients advised firms on policy and geopolitical strategy, into crisis, with blue-chip firms including Standard Life, Bank of America and Tesco severing ties. Despite veteran chief executive Wegg-Prosser stepping down in a bid to contain the fallout, the agency was put into administration by its board last month.
The rapid chain of events has sparked a hiring spree to secure Global Counsel’s clients and staff, many of whom have over a decade’s worth of experience in what is a burgeoning pocket of the UK consultancy landscape.
Capstone ‘winning race’ for Global Counsel staff
FGS Global, London-headquartered communications shop owned by US buyout giant KKR, has already scooped up several of the agency’s senior partners, including Wegg-Prosser’s successor as chief executive, Rebecca Parker, and financial services lead Matthew Conway. Morning Wire understands that public relations boutique Hanbury has also secured several senior hires.
But US-based Capstone has also emerged as a frontrunner in the battle for staff, despite having little presence or track record delivering lobbying in Britain. The agency was set up in Washington as an investment advisory firm, before expanding into policy consultancy and what it calls ‘enhanced government relations’.
“This was an incredible opportunity for us to expand the corporate category of what we do in Europe, and also to radically expand the government relations offering, which we had already planned to do, frankly,” David Barrosse, its co-founder and chief executive, told Morning Wire.
“For us we [immediately] saw all these leaders from Global Counsel, and it was a feeding frenzy for sure, and we’re biased, but we think we won that contest.
The speed of Global Counsel’s collapse left several of the failed agency’s major clients in limbo, with major projects half-completed. The agency’s staff are all the more attractive, Barrosse added, given that unlike a traditional hire, there are no conditions – known as restrictive covenants – preventing them from bringing former clients on board immediately.
“These were, in most cases, clients that are in the middle of important work they were doing with Global Counsel that, frustratingly, ended abruptly,” he said. “So they were like, I need you to finish this work no matter where you are. I need you to finish this work because it’s related to work that we need to get.”