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About the Role

As a Managing Director at Burson Buchanan, you will be a principal growth engine, client counsellor, and key leader within our premier strategic advisory boutique. You will establish Burson Buchanan as the premier strategic advisory boutique for contentious matters in Europe. You will be responsible for building, launching, and scaling Burson Buchanan’s new Litigation Communications practice across the UK and Europe, as well as supporting the firm’s efforts to counsel clients on high-stakes capital markets events, crises and other market-shaping issues.

Responsibilities

Shape the market offering: define and execute the go-to-market strategy to launch and scale Burson Buchanan’s Litigation Communications capability across the UK and Europe.
Advise and lead: serve as a trusted advisor to C-suite, Boards, General Counsels, and outside legal counsel on high-stakes and high-profile litigation and government investigations.
Client service leader: lead complex litigation, government investigations, and crisis and issues mandates, ensuring flawless execution, game-changing strategic positioning, and the highest standards of quality control across all deliverables.
Innovate: champion bold, innovative, and data-informed comms strategies, leveraging our global network to support clients across complex legal and corporate communications challenges.
Lead by example: operate with a true “player-coach” mindset—demonstrating the agility to transition seamlessly from board-level counsel to rolling up your sleeves on core deliverables, taking proactive ownership to solve both client and firm-wide challenges.
Origination & growth: act as a principal revenue driver, cultivating a deep referral network of law firm partners, litigators, litigation funders, and General Counsels across key UK and European legal hubs.
Pitch & proposal leadership: lead client pitches, RFPs, and crisis response mobilisations with speed, authority, and commercial rigor.
Cross-selling: identify opportunities to cross-sell litigation comms to Burson Buchanan’s existing corporate/financial retainer clients, while introducing Burson’s wider corporate, PA, and IR services to newly acquired legal dispute clients.
Network & brand ambassador: serve as a prominent external ambassador for Burson Buchanan through market commentary, event participation, and senior industry networking to enhance agency profile and lead pipeline.
Senior Leadership Team: serve as an active member of the SLT, contributing directly to agency-wide strategy, operational excellence, talent strategy, and long-term positioning.
Team building & talent acquisition: recruit, build, and mentor a specialist litigation communications team as the practice scales, instilling a high-performance, fast-paced boutique mindset.
High-performance culture: model leadership behaviours, setting a benchmark for ambition, strategic depth, and commercial urgency across a high-functioning team of advisors—while helping to build a culture that fosters connection and respect.
AI & innovation leadership: lead by example in adopting innovative solutions for our clients, including AI-driven communications tools, and ensure team adherence to WPP tools, ethical frameworks, and best practices.
Cross-agency collaboration: work closely with the UK Senior Leadership Team and European regional leadership to leverage existing crisis skillsets and integrate litigation comms into wider group offerings.
Thought leadership & market profile: establish Burson Buchanan as the definitive voice on litigation communications in Europe through published thought leadership, media commentary, legal industry event sponsorships, and panel participation.

Requirements

Leverage your deep network of relationships at leading law firms and in the executive ranks (especially at the General Counsel level) and boardrooms of leading companies to help originate new business leads and opportunities.
Oversee accounts and lead teams in responding to the market-shaping events faced by Burson Buchanan clients, ensuring we consistently deliver excellent client work and results.
Help shape the strategic direction of the firm.
Set the tone for a team culture that is built on high performance, teamwork, and open and respectful feedback.
Serve as a trusted advisor to C-suite, Boards, General Counsels, and outside legal counsel on high-stakes and high-profile litigation and government investigations.
Lead complex litigation, government investigations, and crisis and issues mandates, ensuring flawless execution, game-changing strategic positioning, and the highest standards of quality control across all deliverables.
Champion bold, innovative, and data-informed comms strategies, leveraging our global network to support clients across complex legal and corporate communications challenges.
Operate with a true “player-coach” mindset.
Act as a principal revenue driver, cultivating a deep referral network of law firm partners, litigators, litigation funders, and General Counsels across key UK and European legal hubs (London, Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels, Dublin).
Lead client pitches, RFPs, and crisis response mobilisations with speed, authority, and commercial rigor.
Identify opportunities to cross-sell litigation comms to Burson Buchanan’s existing corporate/financial retainer clients, while introducing Burson’s wider corporate, PA, and IR services to newly acquired legal dispute clients.
Serve as a prominent external ambassador for Burson Buchanan through market commentary, event participation, and senior industry networking to enhance agency profile and lead pipeline.
Contribute directly to agency-wide strategy, operational excellence, talent strategy, and long-term positioning.
Recruit, build, and mentor a specialist litigation communications team as the practice scales, instilling a high-performance, fast-paced boutique mindset.
Model leadership behaviours, setting a benchmark for ambition, strategic depth, and commercial urgency across a high-functioning team of advisors.
Lead by example in adopting innovative solutions for our clients, including AI-driven communications tools, and ensure team adherence to WPP tools, ethical frameworks, and best practices.
Work closely with the UK Senior Leadership Team and European regional leadership to leverage existing crisis skillsets and integrate litigation comms into wider group offerings.
Establish Burson Buchanan as the definitive voice on litigation communications in Europe through published thought leadership, media commentary, legal industry event sponsorships, and panel participation.
You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.
You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.
You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

Skills

Strategic advisory
Communications support
Capital markets events
Financial communications
Litigation communications
Government investigations
Crisis management
Reputation management
Data analytics
AI tools
Business development
Client relationship management
Team leadership
Strategic planning
Operational excellence
Talent strategy
AI-driven communications

Location

UK
Europe

Work Type

Hybrid
Onsite

Experience Level

Managing Director
Senior Leadership

Benefits

Passionate, inspired people
Scale and opportunity
Challenging and stimulating work

About the Company

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.
We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth.
We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise.
Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow.
Burson Buchanan delivers high-level advisory and communications support to clients on major capital markets events, ongoing financial communications, high-profile litigation and government investigations, crises and other reputation-defining events.
Backed by Burson’s global network and market-leading data, analytics and AI tools, Burson Buchanan is defining strategic communications advisory for the intelligence era.

Equal Opportunity

WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics.
We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.