Burson-Marsteller Brussels

Ane Sofie first joined the Burson-Marsteller Brussels in January 2003.
Ane Sofie deals extensively with the EU institutions through advocacy and communications campaigns within public health and pharmaceutical policy. She has moreover carried out a number of pan-European disease awareness campaigns, including profile-raising and contact building. Her clients include pharmaceutical companies as well as patient groups, medical associations and the public sector.

In 2007, Ane Sofie worked as an International Public Policy Manager with Roche where she was working with global political out-reach and patient group relations in the area of oncology, before returning to Burson-Marsteller in 2008.  Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller in 2003, Ane Sofie was employed at the Permanent Representation of Denmark to the EU during the lead up to and during the Danish EU Presidency in 2002. Here, she was part of the team responsible for the Presidency’s relations to the European Parliament and the Commission.  

She graduated in 2000 with an MSc in Public Policy from University of Aalborg where she specialised in European Affairs. She also holds an MA in International Relations (1999) from the University of Kent at Canterbury. A native Danish speaker, Ane Sofie is fluent in English and speaks French and German.

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.