LONDON—Weber Shandwick has appointed Mary Whenman as managing director of the corporate, financial and public affairs division of the firm’s London office. Whenman will join the firm from Grayling and will report to EMEA and London CEO Colin Byrne on the performance of the division and to Jim Donaldson, head of EMEA corporate communications on developments for the firm’s corporate offer. Donaldson is also being promoted to run a newly formed international team of senior consultants based in London working across Weber Shandwick’s growing international client portfolio, with a particular focus on developing markets.

JOHANNESBURG—éclat Marketing, a specialist business-to-business technology PR agency has been appointed by Blue Coat Systems, a provider of Web security and WAN optimisation solutions, to establish and maintain brand awareness for the company in South Africa. éclat launched and completed a successful initial PR awareness campaign at the end of 2012, where a local spokesperson was introduced to the IT press. Phase 2 of the program, which aims to position Blue Coat as a leader in web security and WAN optimisation.

LONDON—Steel company Evraz has appointed Vsevolod Sementsov as vice president of corporate communications, responsible for the development and implementation of the corporate communication strategy, media relations, government relations, as well as corporate social responsibility activities. Sementsov previously served as a director of public relations at JSFC Sistema for five year and was earlier PR manager at Intel.

OXFORD—Bottle PR has recruited two new consultants: Alexandra Thompson from FWD PR as Account Director in the B2B team, and Viki Coppin from Wrap, a government-funded organisation promoting behavioural change around resource efficiency, joins as account manager in the social media team. Thompson has a background in financial and insurance PR, having spent four years at the Chartered Insurance Institute

LONDON— Aspectus PR, the business communications agency, has added Upstream Advisors to its growing list of clients in the oil and gas sector. Aspectus PR's main task will be to develop messaging for Upstream Advisors and an initial media relations programme as the London-based consultancy embarks on a global expansion plan.

LONDON—Integrated brand communications agency Noire has appointed PR practitioner Cat Lenheim as account director. Lenheim has previously held a number of senior positions within global communications agencies including Metia and Hotwire, managing campaigns for a variety of finance and technology companies. In addition to an in-house PR role for Skoda, she more recently worked as a freelance PR and media consultant in the London area.