London, 2 March 2006…Quality relationships with stakeholders and their management are more important than ever. So says new research from pioneering strategy and communications consultants, Firstline Europe.

Firstline Europe, launched today in London, is a new network of like-minded independent companies that are each led by senior experts in a variety of stakeholder management disciplines.

At the launch, Firstline released findings of a Pan-European survey of top level directors who describe the business challenges they face from their unique and personal point of view.

“European business leaders fear a vicious circle where insufficient governance, in particular transparency, little focus on corporate responsibility and customer needs foster a general lack of trust in business. Lack of trust drives in turn national, EU and US inspired regulation, which reduces flexibility, harms innovation and fuels further stakeholder disenchantment” said Martin Langford of Kissmann Langford, the UK arm of Firstline Europe.

“This is the main reason why we believe that Firstline’s emphasis on stakeholder management as a core business activity is so critical and timely”, adds Thomas Blach of Firstline Communications from Denmark and the founder of Firstline Europe.

According to Blach it is clear that business is looking to build a different model based on a new social contract, on transparency, attention to individual customer needs and those of the community and the world society in equal measure.. “This is the key to fostering trust, reducing the stranglehold of regulation and unleashing innovation once more… so for us and for our clients stakeholder management is the principal route to building a new and sustainable competitive advantage” says Blach.


The 9 member companies of Firstline Europe are all experts in delivering this new stakeholder based model. “We can offer a unique combination of tailor made and personal service with operational capacity on an international scale, despite the modest size of each member company in the network”, concludes Blach. And the cost/value considerations he looks at compare extremely favourably with the large, global companies as well as the traditional niche players.


Contact: Martin Langford + 44 7990 592 337