LONDON—Online travel site lastminute.com has appointed GolinHarris to handle its consumer public relations in the UK. GolinHarris will work with lastminute.com to support its brand strategy “love living last minute,” to communicate a message around spontaneous, last minute travel and leisure. GolinHarris will also manage the brand's UK press office and the brand's media profile on a retained basis.

MOSCOW—Independent media company CTC Media has appointed Alexey Shchedrin as chief strategic communications officer with responsibility for financial communications and investor relations, public relations, and communications support for television projects. Shchedrin was the director of corporate communications and investor relations at Nord Gold and earlier senior consultant for corporate and financial communications at communications agency Mikhailov & Partners.

LONDON—Social media agency We Are Social has made three new senior hires in its London headquarters, including Lucy Doubleday—former business director for Dare and JWT—in the newly created role of operations director. We Are Social has also appointed JWT's Matt Payne in the new role of head of creative technology, and Nick Hearne has joined the We Are Social team as senior creative after serving as creative lead at U-Dox.

LONDON—Consumer, sports and entertainment specialist Ryan Sketchley will join Thirteen Communications in November as a senior account director in its first senior hiring since the agency launched two months ago. Sketchley, who orchestrated global syndication of the Red Bull Stratos leap and the Lloyds Bank Torch Relay at the 2012 Olympics, joins with a remit to develop content, entertainment and sports at the agency.  

LONDON—Jargon PR has been appointed by web design and SEO experts Optimease to run a UK media relations campaign. Jargon PR will manage the UK reputation of Optimease and run a media relations campaign designed to raise brand awareness of the agency within its core recruitment market.
 
MANCHESTER—Citigate Dewe Rogerson has launched a new regional office in Manchester to grow its client base in the North West, provide service to existing clients in the area and establish a base close to the BBC’s MediaCity headquarters in Salford.

LONDON—Aspectus PR has picked up the UK account for RES Software, a workspace virtualisation leader. Aspectus has been coordinating RES Software’s corporate PR campaign through its New York office for the last year.