Martin Langford

Martin has 35 years’ experience in the public relations industry, is an international authority on media issues and crisis communications and a previous recipient of the “Public Relations Professional of the Year" award from PR Week, the leading industry publication, for his outstanding work in this discipline.

Dubbed “The Master of Disaster” by the UK’s Daily Telegraph Martin's reputation has continued to build through an extensive series of assignments, most of which – particularly the most interesting – will unfortunately for reasons of confidentiality remain forever under wraps. Exceptions, however, include:

• J&J's Tylenol recall, where Martin handled the crisis in the only non-US Tylenol market, Ireland – an event still widely employed in text books and business schools as a definitive case study in crisis management
• Worldwide counselling and training, including “train the trainers” training for 150 Johnson &Johnson managers following the relabelling of Propulsid in the US
• Counselling during the class action law suit on Shiley faulty heart valves
• The famous Perrier Water recall and re-launch
• Handling the aftermath of Esso's Melbourne refinery explosion, which left the whole of the state of Victoria, Australia, without gas for a fortnight
• Handling Dell's interests when a disgruntled Beijing dealer attempted to have the company debarred from the Chinese market
• Crisis training at the behest of Singapore's Tourist Board for all ASEAN foreign and tourism ministers, enabling cooperative action on cross-border crises
• Plant closures – handled on over 30 occasions in a dozen different countries
• Crisis planning systems – created for more than 50 companies

In addition, he has trained thousands of managers in Asia, Australia and Europe in media and crisis communications, and has managed international repositioning and rebranding programmes for several multinational corporations.

Martin spent 32 years with Burson-Marsteller where he led the London operation for the company and was subsequently based in Singapore, managing the ASEAN offices of the company.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Relations and was Chairman of the Public Relations Consultants Association in the UK – which represents 150 leading consultancies – from 1992–1994.