LONDON—Kim Gagne, former senior director of industry affairs for Microsoft, has joined APCO Worldwide as a senior advisor. Based in the UK, Gagne will split his time between the firm’s London and Brussels offices. He most recently served in Microsoft’s Brussels office, where he was the primary manager of Microsoft’s pan-European advocacy campaigns. Prior to joining Microsoft, Gagne was a foreign service officer with the US Department of State.

LONDON—Communications and public affairs consultancy Hanover has launched a new market access practice within its UK and European health team. Market access is a new practice alongside health communications and the firm’s UK and European policy and advocacy teams in London and Brussels. The new practice is led by director Jing Wang-Silvanto (pictured), who previously held senior market access and health economics positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb in the UK, and globally at GSK and Novartis.

FRANKFURT—Kai Fischer has been named managing director of group communications, and Martin Halusa press officer of Deutsche Börse. Fischer has been at Deutsche Börse since 2008, and has held various management positions, most recently as head of department controlling. Prior to joining Deutsche Börse, he spent several years at management consulting company Accenture. Halusa joins Deutsche Börse from Commerzbank, where he has been head of press relations for corporate banking.

LONDON—The PRCA has launched a new online platform which will act as the hub for the organization’s continuous professional development programme. The platform allows practitioners to build their own personal development plan and upload their qualifications to ensure that all learning and development is kept in one place in an easy-to-access platform with customer service support. The platform enables users to track, schedule, and review their annual CPD points through formal and informal activities and can be used by both members and non-members of the PRCA.

SWANSEA—Welsh agency Waters has secured a place on the BBC's digital services framework, which could see the company work on projects in areas including news, sport, children, radio, music and iPlayer.