Our Team


Henry L. Gewanter, MA (Cantab), FCIB, MCIPR, MCIM, MIDM, FRSA – Managing Director
Henry established Positive Profile in 1997, after leaving Financial Dynamics, where he had set up and run their Financial Services Division for five years. His career has included four years as Account Director at First Financial, part of the Lowe Bell Group, two years as Deputy Head of Public Relations and Head of Advertising at investment bank County NatWest, and eight years with National Westminster Bank.

An expert in disaster containment and control, he has both domestic and international experience, dealing with employees, customers, analysts, investors, regulators and the media. High-profile crisis management projects successfully handled include the Blue Arrow trials for County NatWest and the Maxwell pension scandal on behalf of IMRO.

Henry graduated in Social and Political Science from King’s College, Cambridge in 1974. Before that he had studied at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the Bronx High School of Science in New York. He lectures widely on investment and was an Assistant Examiner in the subject for over ten years. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and a Member of the Institute of Public Relations, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Institute of Direct Marketing and the Teachers & Trainers of Financial Services’ Consultancy Panel. He is also a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.



Philip Hewitt-Brown – Executive Vice President, Investor Relations
Philip Hewitt-Brown joined Positive Profile as Executive Vice President, Investor Relations in 2004 from Binns & Co. PR, where he was responsible for Investor Relations programmes for its US and UK listed clients.

Before that, he was an FSA Registered Representative in the institutional sales team at Brewin Dolphin Securities.

He has over 35 years’ experience in investment banking, stockbroking, fund management and corporate finance. Philip also has in-depth knowledge of financial services such as venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, fund of funds, etc. His extensive contact base will assist clients in obtaining exposure to key financial institutions.

He has written for the financial press on a full time basis as the founding Consulting Editor of IFR and later with the FT Euromarket Newsletter. His freelance work includes pieces for Le Monde, International Herald Tribune, The Banker, Euromoney, Institutional Investor, Investors Guardian and European Chemical News.

Other posts held previous to his writing career include Investment Manager, Orion Bank, Deputy Fund Manager, Shell Mex & BP Pension Fund and Investment Analyst, Bankers Trust Company of New York. Philip commenced his career as an investment analyst for six years at Cazenove & Co and was the youngest member of the Society of Investment Analysts.

This broad range of experience enables Philip to provide clients with an informed and comprehensive Investor Relations service.



John Butcher, BA – Consultant
John Butcher joined Positive Profile as a consultant in 2005 from Kinlan Communications, where he was a consultant to the hedge fund industry. His clients included Liongate Capital, one of the top-performing fund of hedge funds.

He became a consultant after three years as News Editor of Hedge Funds Review, which he joined from International Investment where he was the Senior Reporter.

Before that he was News Editor of the Bahamas Tribune, a national daily newspaper for the Bahamas and prior to that wrote for a variety of local and national newspapers in the UK and Central America.

In addition to PR and investor relations consulting for hedge fund managers, he is currently Editorial Director of Islamic Investor International, the leading website for Middle Eastern investors and global financial professionals working in that market.

He has a broad knowledge of the offshore investment market, with specific expertise in hedge funds and Islamic finance.

He is a graduate in Developing World Studies and Film and Art Theories from the University of East London, has post-graduate NCTJ training in journalism from Sheffield College and a Certificate in teaching English as a foreign language from the London Institute.



Richard Clarke, MA (Cantab), FCIM, MSI – Consultant
Richard has worked as a Consultant for Positive Profile since 1999. He offers a strategic and tactical marketing consultancy service to companies within the financial services and Internet industries. Based on his long and successful career in marketing financial services, his advice covers brand strategy, new product development, advertising, direct marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), broker support, research and web site planning and development.

For eleven years until 1998 he was Head of UK Retail Marketing at Mercury Asset Management. He was involved in the launch of over 20 unit trusts and PEPs and led the marketing strategy for two record-breaking investment trust launches, which raised £425 million and £575 million respectively. Prior to that he was Head of Advertising and Direct Marketing for 10 years at M&G Group, where he developed direct marketing strategies that generated over 60% of M&G’s total sales in 1987 and helped to establish it as the largest unit trust group in the UK. He has also worked at Dunlop and advertising agency Foster, Turner, Benson.

He graduated in Modern Languages from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge in 1973, where he also gained a Rowing Blue. He is a Member of the Securities Institute and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. From 1988 to 1990 he was a Member of the LAUTRO Advertising and Product Development Committee.



Vanessa Peters, LLB, MBA, MCIPR – Consultant
Vanessa has worked at senior management level in local government, the NHS, the rail industry, the private sector and financial services regulation. Vanessa has worked as a senior consultant for Positive Profile since October 1997. She specialises in internal communications, performance management and change and crisis management. She has specific expertise in the field of consumer relations, having been responsible for establishing and managing the communications function at both the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman Bureau, IMRO and on a major change programme at Railtrack where she managed the internal communication function. She then managed the Consumer Care Department at the Homerton University Hospital NHS Trust on an interim basis.

She managed the internal communications function on a £100 million project for Railtrack, where she ensured that Railtrack zones and the IMC’s bought in to the programme, that frontline staff were provided with relevant, timely information and training, and that the team met all the agreed performance targets. Prior to that she was seconded to work at energywatch headquarters in preparation for the merger of the Gas and Electricity Consumer Councils and the launch of the new body. She set up and managed the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman Bureau which dealt with 10,000 enquiries and complaints a year relating to the work of Independent Financial Advisers regulated under the Financial Services Act.

In addition to her paid work, Vanessa has 20 years’ experience on the management committee of a national charity working with young homeless people where outreach work is a key part of the strategy.

Vanessa’s clients have also included property group Minerva, City law firm Cameron McKenna, fund managers Premier Asset Management and private bank Leopold Joseph & Sons.

Vanessa is a qualified solicitor, having obtained her LLB from the London School of Economics, has an MBA from London Guildhall University, is a Member of the Institute of Public Relations and Of Communicators in Business. She is a Prince 2 practitioner.



Jonathan Rush, BSc CEng MICE, MCIPR – Consultant
Jonathan joined Positive Profile in November 1999 from the Communication Group, where he was the senior Director in its corporate division. Previously he was an Associate Director at Lowe Bell Good Relations and a Director of Australian-based Rush International.

Jonathan has extensive experience of corporate public relations, crisis and issue management, public affairs and marketing communications across a wide range of industry sectors, including the Internet. He is well versed in managing hostile media and has been involved in several contentious, high profile issues, such as PFI, the greenfield/brownfield housing debate, food additives, membership of the Euro, air safety, GM foods, oil industry pollution, disease management and private healthcare.

His broad client experience includes Norwich Union PPP, energywatch, McGraw-Hill, Totalise plc, Business for Sterling, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Hutchison Whampoa, the House Builders Federation and the Independent Healthcare Association. He is an Executive Council Member of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) and was a member of the IPR’s ‘e-commission’, as a result of which he was commissioned to write a deliberately provocative report entitled ‘The Death of Spin?’ He lectures abroad and at the London School of Public Relations.



Ashley Gibbins, MIPR – Consultant
Ashley Gibbins has many years’ senior experience in local and regional government and is an expert in community consultation and engagement, particularly in urban regeneration and transport strategies.

Career highlights

  • Currently producing and delivering a travel awareness strategy and campaign for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with funding from Transport for London. The campaign will be geared to reducing traffic congestion and vehicle emissions in the borough by encouraging greater use of alternative forms of transport.
  • Produced a detailed communications strategy for road safety officers and associations with BRAKE, an independent organisation working to stop death and injury on the road. The strategy is to be published shortly – with government funding – and will be used as the basis for a series of regional road safety conferences in the Autumn.
  • Currently providing public relations support to four private sector operating companies which provide refuse collection, street cleaning, housing maintenance and facilities management services to four London boroughs.
  • As Head of Public Relations for the Commission for the New Towns in Corby, responsible for the marketing and promotion of the Commission’s £45 million regeneration of this former steel town.
  • At London Borough of Enfield set up and managed the consultation and communications strategies that secured a ‘yes vote’ for the Edmonton Partnership Initiative (a £110 million public/private sector regeneration of the Edmonton area of the borough); the Comprehensive Development Initiative (an initiative to build 2,000 homes on brownfield sites) and Southbury Corner (an £85 million community leisure, commercial retail and residential development).
  • In 1993 combined the management of an in-house communications service for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) with the development of a corporate communications strategy for the authority.
  • While Head of Communications with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets managed the economic development remit, particularly the council’s relationship with the London Dockland’s Development Corporation (which was developing the Isle of Dogs neighbourhood) and the Bethnal Green City Challenge (which was regenerating this ‘city fringe’ area of the borough).

Personal

Member of the Institute of Public Relations and currently writing a textbook on event management for the IPR’s Public Relations in Practice series. Runs training workshops for the IPR, writes and lectures on event, media, crisis and reputation management and has been appointed visiting tutor for the MA course in Public Relations at the London Institute. Council Member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists and chairman of its travel writers group, and member of the Institute of Directors.



Geoffrey Yates – Consultant
Geoffrey joined Positive Profile as a consultant in 2003. He has extensive experience in foreign investment marketing and regional development activities in both the UK and emerging markets of central and Eastern Europe and Russia. In addition he has acted as a consultant to international companies investing in emerging markets through the privatisation process and assignments have been completed in both the services and manufacturing sector.

Among his responsibilities is advising Positive Profile in their bid for privatisation work in Eastern Europe.

In addition to his privatisation work he is also a consultant on donor aid projects and has managed large assignments for various companies in the markets of Eastern Europe and Russia. As a result of his experience in these markets he has advised several companies on their international trade strategies and worked with them to find and qualify international distributors and dealers for their products.

He has worked for various regional development agencies in the UK. He was responsible for regional development strategies before he moved to the US to lead foreign investment marketing initiatives for the development agencies in Scotland and Yorkshire and Humberside.

His career included working as an investment analyst in the City and at a later stage for a merchant bank where he interacted with corporate banking and private client work. He has honed his interpersonal skills through working in various environments and is used to presenting at Board level, operating in international markets and identifying prospects.

Geoffrey has a B.Sc in Chemistry from Strathclyde University, Scotland.