Porter Novelli's former EMEA corporate head Alex Woolfall joins Coca-Cola

He will provide support on issues management and corporate comms, and reports to Lauren Branston, European corporate comms director. 

Woolfall joins the company on a consultancy basis. He has worked with the firm for more than five years on and off while at previous agencies, including running a CSR campaign for the firm in 2009.

He said: ‘Agency staff often forget the pressures and reality of working in-house. After years on the agency side, I thought it would be a great opportunity to experience that first hand again.’ 

Woolfall left Porter Novelli this summer to take a sabbatical. Prior to this role, he spent nearly 20 years in crisis comms, heading crisis and issue management at various large agencies including the Bell Pottinger Group, Weber Shandwick and Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

Perhaps his highest profile crisis was handling PR for travel firm Mark Warner when Madeleine McCann went missing from its Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz in Portugal.

During a profile interview with PRWeek last year, Woolfall managed to get through two cans of Diet Coke, and talked about Coke being one of his dream clients. 

Coca-Cola GB recently launched a major corporate and public affairs hunt after a conflict of interest for incumbent Portland over arch-rival PepsiCo.

This article was first published on prweek.com