Best consultancies

Brussels Office Since

2017

Firm Description

Rud Pedersen is a European public affairs consultancy with Nordic roots. Long established as the largest public affairs consultancy in the Nordics, we have grown fast across Europe, opening new offices specialising in public affairs in Brussels, Berlin, Madrid, London, Paris, Prague, Riga, Rome, Sofia, Tallinn, Vilnius, Warsaw, and Kyiv since 2017. Our Brussels office alone has seen x5 growth since 2020.

Our consultants combine policy knowledge, political experience, and advocacy expertise across the full spectrum of activities required to engage successfully with political, regulatory, civil society and media actors in Brussels and EU member states.

Ownership Structure

Partnership

International Network

Rud Pedersen Public Affairs Brussels is part of the Rud Pedersen Group, one of the fastest growing public affairs and strategic communications companies, and probably the largest public affairs specialist consultancy in Europe. It has over 580 consultants operating in Brussels, Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Kyiv, London, Madrid, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Riga, Rome, Sofia, Stockholm, Tallinn, Vilnius, and Warsaw. We are active in other European capitals, working with dedicated public affairs partners.

Key Strengths

Public affairs first: all our offices across the EU specialise in public affairs first and foremost. Public affairs is not an add-on to other professional services, meaning we can gather intel and deploy programmes in Brussels and member states seamlessly.

The biggest bench of Senior Advisors in Brussels: we have +15 Senior Advisors with decades of experience at very senior levels at the institutions, in national government, and industry. All our Senior Advisors are fully embedded in our team, working with clients and mentoring our younger staff members every day.

Independent and partner-owned: we are owned by our partners, so we invest our profits in people rather than payments to holding companies. As a result, we have higher ratios of staff to revenue than most consultancies, which means our consultants are less stretched, and we believe, able to perform to a higher level.

European team with Nordic roots: Our team in Brussels is truly European. 18 nationalities are represented, and we have many Brussels veterans amongst us. But our Nordic roots are reflected in our culture, which we sum up up as: caring, inquisitive, and driven.

Multi-disciplinary team: policy making in Brussels remains highly technical, but a more political Commission, engaged Parliament and greater involvement of member states has created a more complicated and volatile political environment. Our consultants range from technical experts with years of experience in regulatory agencies, industry veterans with deep sector knowledge, through to former journalists and ad agency executives able to develop campaigns that build political capital and shape public sentiment.

Recognised leadership in public affairs: in 2023 we were named public affairs consultancy of the year (PRovoke Media) and two of our senior leaders are recipients of the European Public Affairs Consultant of the Year award.

Number of Public Affairs Consultants

75

Key Clients

• AkzoNobel

• Bayer

• Corteva

• Diageo

• Lego

• Microsoft

• Novonesis

Thought Leadership

Rud Pedersen run several event and podcast series displaying our interest and expertise across a number of policy areas, through to the practice of public affairs in a fast changing world:

• Climate Talks: Hosted by Peter Vis, who led the development of the EU's climate policy for over two decades in a variety of roles in the European Commission, Climate Talks is a webinar series launched in March 2020 that features some of Europe’s leading climate and energy experts exploring issues ranging from ETS, energy efficiency in buildings, through to EU Taxonomy.
• Blue Deal Debates: Hosted by the former chair of the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee, Chris Davies, the series features discussions on the essential need for a European Blue Deal in parallel with the European Green Deal, providing institutional, industrial and environmental stakeholders a platform to debate their questions.
• Chemical Reactions: Chemicals Reactions is a podcast series also moderated by Chris Davies in tandem with James Stevens, Managing Partner. It explores the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and its impact on the chemicals industry in Europe. The show has featured high level speakers from industry, national ministries, NGOs, as well as a special edition with Bjorn Hansen, Executive Director of ECHA.
• D9: A podcast hosted by Claudio Murri, Senior Advisor at Rud Pedersen following 30 years of experience in public policy and government affairs at Time Warner, Oracle, Electronic Data Systems and IBM. In this series, Claudio interviews leaders in tech from the D9 countries, Europe’s #Digital Frontrunners.
• Next Generation Public Affairs: In this podcast, hosted by our partner in charge of communications and campaigning, Steffen Thell-Moller, we explore challenges and opportunities in our profession, given developments like rapid digitalisation and citizen activism, through to the need for public affairs to evolve into a more commercially relevant function within businesses.

Testimonials and why clients like to work with us

Our clients see us as trusted advisors, who understand them and the businesses they serve and solve their challenges whatever they may be. Our clients know when they hire Rud Pedersen that they receive senior counsel and senior-level implementation.