Burson-Marsteller Brussels

Jim Currie, the former European Commission Director General for Environment, joined Burson-Marsteller Brussels as a Senior Adviser in April 2007.

Jim Currie worked in the European Commission until 2001 in a series of senior roles. He was the Chief de Cabinet of the Commissioner for Competition Policy and Financial Services, Sir Leon Brittan, before serving as the European Commission’s Acting Ambassador in Washington D.C. during the first Clinton Administration. He was subsequently named Director General for Customs and Taxation in Brussels and then, on the eve of the Kyoto Climate Change Talks, became Director General for Environment. He led the Commission’s Team on the Kyoto Climate Talks and launched the European Emissions Trading Scheme.

David joined Burson-Marsteller Brussels as a Senior Advisor in April 2010. Before that, he was Deputy Secretary-General of the European Parliament.

David started his career in the European Parliament in 1975 as an advisor in the office of the Secretary-General and then held a succession of increasingly senior roles, including as an aide to Parliament President Lord Plumb (a British Conservative), as Spokesman for Parliament President Pat Cox (an Irish Liberal) and as Secretary-General of the Socialist Group, the Parliament’s second largest political family.

In 2007, he took up his final post as Deputy Secretary-General and Director-General of the Presidency.

David is a modern languages graduate of Cambridge University and speaks English, French, Spanish, Italian and German.

During his professional career, Derek worked for the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) in Paris where he was responsible for the International Uranium Resource Evaluation Project. He joined the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy in Brussels in 1984 and worked on nuclear energy policy. In 1995 he became Head of Unit in the Directorate-General for Environment responsible for radioactive waste management and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Nuclear safety was added to these responsibilities in 1998. In 2000 he moved, together with all his activities, to the Directorate General for Energy and Transport. In 2004 he was appointed as Energy Adviser, initially for nuclear issues but in 2005 also for international co-operation on other aspects of energy with emphasis on coal, clean coal technologies, carbon capture and storage and environmental costs and benefits of their use.
He retired from the European Commission in June 2009 and joined Burson-Marsteller as Adviser on Energy Issues on 31 August 2009.

Peter Linton brings to Burson-Marsteller unique experience as an advisor to international corporations on European corporate strategy and political involvement. Based in Brussels since 1972, he is widely recognised for his ability to help companies understand and respond to the phenomenon of European integration, and for his long immersion in European policy and regulatory affairs as they affect corporate strategy and performance.

From 1977 through 1986, Linton served with Business International (BI), where he was responsible or advisory services to corporate executives with Europe-wide responsibilities, and for BI's support services to corporate public affairs executives in Europe. As Vice President and Director for Western Europe, he was further responsible for BI's published services for the region, most notably the weekly Business Europe.

In 1989 he co-founded Robinson Linton Associates together with John Robinson. Robinson Linton Associates became a unit of Burson-Marsteller in 1993.

Peter Linton has been particularly active in information and communications industry sectors, and has pioneered the creation of the "European Internet Foundation" (www.EIFonline.org), which bring together elected politicians, ICT sector and civil society leaders to share understanding, and experience of the digital revolution's impact on European societies and political systems. As a co-founder and Rapporteur of the highly influential Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN, ) in 1993, Linton has likewise become deeply involved in the development of political thinking in Europe on recasting Europe/U.S. relations to respond to new common challenges in the post cold-war world.

John Robinson has for over 35 years been professionally associated with EU developments and everyday activities: first as journalist, then as a European Commission spokesman, and for many years now as senior adviser to leading international corporations (in sectors like foodstuffs, packaging, consumer goods, chemicals, and in EU policy areas like competition/anti-trust, internal market, agriculture and the environment).

While Commission spokesman on social affairs (1981-1985), he wrote “Multinationals & Political Control”, a survey of regulations affecting business in the EU and internationally. Later, he was editor of “The European Challenge” a book which helped launch the EU Single Market Programme in 1992.

In the nascent days of the EU consultancy sector, he was co-founder of Robinson-Linton Associates in 1989, merging in 1998 with Burson-Marsteller where he has since worked as a managing director.

Earlier as a journalist, he was founding editor of the European Report (now Europolitics), and a board member from 1976-1980. He was also a regular contributor to The Economist and special EU correspondent of The Washington Post (1977-1980).

Mayssa Badr joined Burson-Marsteller as a Director in October 2008. Mayssa is responsible for marketing in the Brussels office and also advises clients on media and communication campaigns for clients such as the EU agency ECDC (the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control), Danone-Chiquita and Accenture.
Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller, Mayssa acquired seven years of experience in The Economist Group. She was appointed Commercial Director of European Voice in 2006 and during these two years she overlooked all revenues for the newspaper including print, online and sponsorships for corporate, advocacy and education clients. As such, she was responsible for helping these clients develop positioning strategies that utilized these various tools to position themselves effectively around key EU issues and debates.
Over her 7 year experience in The Economist Group Mayssa has worked with clients such as Shell, Exxon Mobil, Intel, and universities such as LSE or l’ENA. She spent her first years there growing the education section of the newspaper and more specifically the ‘EU Studies Fair and Guide’. Throughout her experience in the Group she has deepened her knowledge of the media and advertising world.
Previous to that, Mayssa also worked as an intern in various places such as for the Gulf News (UAE), Young & Rubicam (UAE), Southbank Institute (Australia) and Media Belgium (St Lucia island).
Mayssa holds a B.A. in Communication and a B.A. in Marketing Management from the EPHEC (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Commerciales) in Brussels. In addition to her native French, she speaks fluent English.

Elizabeth is a Director in the government relations team at Burson-Marsteller Brussels. She provides the day-to-day management of the ICT team advising clients on the impact of EU legislation on their operations, and providing strategic advice on positioning and lobbying.

As Director of Research, she works with other sectors notably healthcare and financial services, and supplies intelligence on horizontal policy developments impacting multiple sectors such as intellectual property rights, competition and taxation.

Before joining Burson-Marsteller, Elizabeth worked for 20 years in Brussels as a journalist for Business Europe and the International Data Group News Service covering political, economic and legislative developments in the European Union institutions.

David O’Leary joined Burson-Marsteller in April 2007 after working for one year in external communications for A.I.S.E., the trade association for the European soaps and detergents industry. He works in the Government Relations team, managing a number of projects for food industry clients. He also works on consumer policy, healthcare and EU institutional issues.

David first worked in Brussels in 2000 as an intern in the European Parliament. After completing his undergraduate studies, he returned to Brussels to work full-time as parliamentary assistant to Eryl McNally MEP, the Socialist Group spokesperson on the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research, and Energy. He acted as Mrs McNally’s ‘sherpa’ in her role as a member of the EU High-Level Group of Personalities on Security-Related Research.

Following Mrs McNally’s retirement, he worked as parliamentary researcher to Phillip Whitehead MEP, the Chairman of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. In this role, he worked on number of controversial and complex dossiers, including the Services Directive and the REACH chemicals legislation, as well as many food safety and consumer protection issues.

David is British, and has an MA (Hons) in Modern European Languages and European Union Studies from the University of Edinburgh. He has also studied at the Institut d’Etudes européennes of the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. In addition to English, he speaks French and some Italian.

Diederik joined Burson-Marsteller Brussels in November 2008. As a Director, he is responsible for advising clients in the fields of EU environment and energy policies.

Before joining B-M, Diederik was working as EU Affairs Manager for the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers. In this position he was responsible for advising international oil and gas companies on EU policy development. He has initiated, designed, and implemented successful advocacy campaigns towards the EU institutions on inter alia marine environmental legislation, emissions trading, and carbon capture and storage. As a result of his work for the oil and gas industry, Diederik has a broad network of contacts in the energy and environmental policy sectors.

Having worked as a political advisor to Dutch Member of the European Parliament Dorette Corbey Diederik has also extensive experience with the EU policy-making process. He has worked on a wide range of EU policies, from energy to food safety, and from chemicals to waste management.

Earlier in his career Diederik has worked for the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; first as a diplomat at the Netherlands Permanent Representation to the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, and later as policy officer in the European Integration Department of the Ministry in The Hague.

Diederik has a degree in International Relations from Groningen University and a post-graduate degree in European Political Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges. A native Dutchman, Diederik is fluent in English, Portuguese, French, and German.

Sylwia Staszak, a Polish national, joined Burson-Marsteller Brussels in May 2006. Her main areas of expertise cover healthcare and nutrition. Sylwia manages a number of industry and non-governmental clients across a range of EU health and nutrition policy issues. She deals primarily with the EU institutions in the fields of public health, pharmaceutical, food and research policy and has an extensive knowledge of the EU’s legislative processes and institutions.

In addition to lobbying on EU legislative issues, Sylwia has actively participated in projects in the area of disease-related advocacy, as well as general profile raising and contact building with the EU institutions. She also has acquired experience in the area of patient advocacy managing public affairs and communications campaigns.

Sylwia holds a degree in Law from the Silesian University in Poland and a Master's degree in Advanced Interdisciplinary European Studies from the College of Europe in Natolin.

Prior to B-M, Sylwia worked as an assistant in the office of Polish Member of the European Parliament dealing mainly with issues related to health, environment and constitutional affairs.

She is a native Polish speaker fluent in English and French and with a good knowledge of Spanish.

Julie Valente joined Burson-Marsteller Brussels in 2003 where she has been active on both the public affairs and public relations front notably working with pharmaceutical companies such as Aventis, Pfizer, Bayer, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Genzyme, Novo Nordisk and Digene but also healthcare professional organisations like the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and patient organisations such as the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the European Heart Network (EHN) and the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (IF).

She has not only designed and implemented public affairs campaigns targeted at the EU institutions on their behalf, but also managed multilingual disease-related advocacy campaigns on issues such as CVD, cervical cancer, birth defects and diabetes to mention just a few. To build the foundations of such campaigns, Julie has carried out pan-European audits and stakeholder mappings on animal welfare, cervical cancer, counterfeit medicines, birth defects and diabetes. Over the last eight years, Julie has also organised a wide range of events such as, among others, a Cancer Patient Advocacy Forum for ESMO, two health report launch events at the European Parliament for Bayer, a strategy meeting on a new EP Resolution, etc. Between 2008 and 2010, Julie also served as a member of the Secretariat to the MEP Heart Group and the European Parliament’s EU Diabetes Working Group for which she led the organisation of a series of meetings at the European Parliament gathering EU and national policy makers, healthcare professionals and patient organisations.

A Belgian national (with a Portuguese father), Julie is a native French speaker, and is also fluent in English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. She has a passive knowledge of Portuguese.

Julie graduated in 2000 with a degree in Languages and Communications from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). She also holds a Postgraduate in Business Communications from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). After spending a year in Exeter (UK), she worked in Madrid for a year in the field of events organisation and gained experience in media relations while working on three different European Commission projects for DG Education and Culture.

Johan is responsible at Burson-Marsteller Brussels for Belgian market clients, servicing them on a variety of issues, ranging from incident management, market launches, corporate PR campaigns, media relations and product PR.

He has worked as a marketing Communications Manager Europe for a PC Card maker. Johan was also responsible for corporate and product press relations, events and trade fairs. Prior to this, He was Head of Communications for ETAP Lighting, a Belgian industrial lighting firm. In addition, Johan was in charge of ensuring the right marketing communication mix. Earlier in his career, Johan worked at Mc Cann Erickson and Ogilvy PR on corporate communication and employer branding projects and was communication consultant to the European Commission in a TACIS project in Russia: the introduction of personal income tax.

Sabine Wimpissinger joined B-M at the beginning of 2003 from the Permanent Representation of Austria to the EU where she worked for several years as the trade attaché. At Burson-Marsteller Sabine advises clients from a variety of sectors with a special focus on trade, environment as well as food and beverage policies.

After Austria joined the European Union in 1995, Sabine worked first for DG Agriculture of the European Commission, dealing with relations with the European Parliament and NGOs, and then for Forum Europe, a Brussels-based conference organiser. In 1997 Sabine joined the Austrian Ministry for Economic Affairs in Vienna where she dealt with the EU enlargement.

Sabine has a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Vienna and also holds a Master in International Politics from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. She has dual citizenship of Austria and Sweden and along with her native German and Swedish she speaks English, French and Portuguese.