LOW welcomes three new experts to its distinguished Associates network
LOW is delighted to welcome three new members to its distinguished network of Associates.
Drawing from distinct professional backgrounds, LOW will work with these new team members to continue to address complex communications issues on a worldwide scale, so as to help us achieve the best outcomes for our clients.
Samantha de Bendern,
Associate Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House
Samantha’s career has spanned the public and private sectors, with a mix of political consulting, policy and strategic communications and finance. After working for 10 years as an international civil servant for the European Commission and NATO HQ in Brussels, Samantha moved to Private Banking with a special focus on Eastern Central Europe and Central Asia. She was first based in Geneva with Coutts Bank, before joining the Private Banking team at Merrill Lynch Paris. She left banking in 2012 to concentrate full-time on political risk consulting and writing non-fiction and fiction. In 2014 she was part of a British Government funded project to help the Ukrainian Government organise their strategic communications following the annexation of Crimea. She has also worked in India as a writer and researcher for the British think tank Institute for Statecraft, and for a number of journals and magazines. Samantha is active in EU affairs, especially combatting disinformation. Samantha is bilingual in English and French, speaks fluent Russian, Italian and Spanish and has working knowledge of Czech and German.
Sue Bird
With the Commission for more than 20 years, Sue has led on initiatives in regional policy, industry policy, research and development, information society, and employment and social affairs. Until recently, she was a Policy Coordinator in the Commission's DG for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, where she was in charge of Corporate Social Responsibility and relations with the private sector. In this role, she played a key part in the development of the 2011 European Commission Communication on CSR, coordinating a number of the Commission's CSR initiatives. Before this, she coordinated the Commission's Structural funding (economic development aid) for Slovakia for 2004-2006, and held a coordinating role across the Telematics Applications Programme for research and development in public sector information society initiatives.
Stefan Denig
Stefan is an international sustainability and communications executive and has 30 years of experience in public relations, strategic communication planning and public affairs. He has lived and worked for a variety of NGOs, technology and finance companies, consultancies and PR agencies in Germany, UK, Belgium, France and the U.S. Stefan has overseen a large number of studies, research projects, campaigns and conferences on climate protection, sustainable urbanization, digitalisation and infrastructure, including the Green City Index, the first comprehensive analysis of the environmental performance of the world's 150 largest cities. He built a public exhibition and conference center on sustainable urbanization for Siemens and the City of London. He designed and facilitated conferences on climate, infrastructure and digitization topics in numerous cities in Europe, the U.S., Latin America and Asia. In Brussels, Mr. Denig was responsible for global communication for EIT Climate KIC and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy. He acts as a Strategic Advisor for ifok, one of Europe’s largest consultancy firms for public participation and stakeholder engagement.