LONDON—DeVries Global has promoted Helena Bloomer to regional MD, Europe, and Gemma Chaldecott to deputy managing director, UK. Bloomer’s new position expands her role to include greater responsibility for agency growth and capability across the region. Bloomer has been with DeVries and predecessor firm Slam since 2006. Chaldecott previously served as head of brand strategy for DeVries Slam and now assumes day-to-day operational oversight of the UK office.

LONDON—Lexis has been appointed by The Open University to support the university's “Life-changing Learning” campaign. PR activities will include a series of consumer-facing activations that support a range of brand and direct response marketing campaigns. The work will include media, earned social media and experiential activity.

DUBAI—The Public Relations Consultants Association is launching PRCA MENA (PRCA Middle East and North Africa), which will represent PR consultancies, in-house communications teams, and individuals in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Egypt. PRCA MENA will be co-chaired by Loretta Ahmed, CEO Middle East at Grayling, and Mohamed Al Ayed, CEO of TRACCS. 

LONDON—Lansons has recruited James Dowling in the newly created role of head of public policy. Dowling joins the firm having spent five years at HM Treasury running the Finance Bill team, before becoming head of the insurance sector policy division. He more recently worked at FleishmanHillardFishburn where he was a director in the corporate team.

LONDON—RichRelevance, a global leader in omnichannel personalisation, has appointed Threepipe to manage its UK press office activity. Threepipe will be working to profile RichRelevance's expanded management team and highlight the company's suite of services to the UK retail community.

LONDON—Iain Ferguson has joined the board of Creston as a non-executive director representing the company's largest shareholder, DBAY Advisors Limited. His background includes several years at Havas, where he was a member of the executive committee and was worldwide CEO of marketing services based in New York. Richard Huntingford, non-executive chairman of the company, has decided to step down from the board.

LONDON—Pagefield has appointed Kieran O'Connell as an associate partner. He joins from Tata Steel, where he is a public affairs manager. Earlier, he was a senior consultant at Hanover Communications for more than five years, working with clients including Cuadrilla, Three Mobile and BlackBerry.